Judgment of Helen
by JayLah
Summary: Set during World War II, the elf King and goblin King clash over the same bride, 17 year old Helen Kirke. Instead of conceding to tradition, the two compete for her hand, while unknowingly drawing unwelcome human attention.
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** I got this idea after reading the Hollow Kingdom short story, Parisian Judgment from Clare B. Dunkle's site. This takes place during World War II when the children were removed to rural areas and out of bombing targeted cities. The elf King and goblin King in this story are the grandsons of Nir and Catspaw, respectively. Please review and let me know what you think.

**Judgment of Helen**

_September 1940_

While war raged on among the human nations of the world, the elves and goblins paid little attention. Powerful and absorbed in their own simpler lives as they were, the problems of humans seemed to have little effect on them. It wasn't until the war came to their own kingdoms, in the Lake District of England, in the only way the human world could touch the elves and goblins: in the form of a possible King's Bride.

After news of a beautiful girl of 17 moving into the area reached the elf King, Aganir Melanur, and goblin King, Marak Wolfang, they each made plans to take her. The protocol of alerting each other of their intentions was observed on both sides- as an after though, but observed none the less. Unfortunately, they each missed their message because of their haste to snatch the girl. So when nightfall came, they each found themselves facing each other at the foot of this young woman's bed, much like their father's before them, Aganir Usan and Marak Boartusk, when they competed for the human girl, Colette.

"Do the girl a favor and go home Wolfang," said Melanur. He took a quick glance at his reflection in the vanity mirror and raked a hand through his black curls to make sure they hung as charmingly disorderly as possible. "You know I have precedence here."

"I would think you would prefer I take her," Wolfang said. "If I don't marry a human, that leaves one of your elves. But then of course, I would hate to raid such a small band as yours. With less than 700 elves, I'm not sure your people are strong enough to take the blow."

Melanur smiled, allowing his black eyes to dance, just as he always did when an insult hit him squarely where it smarted. "Fine words coming from a mutt. Do you always foam at the mouth like a dog or only when you're agitated like this?"

The last time Melanur made a similar allusion, he had the pleasure of watching Wolfang reach up to where his mouth protruded out almost like a wolf's to feel the brown hair around his lips and the canines that protruded out of his gum, to see if there was any foam.

Unfortunately, the goblin King had learned from their last sparring match.

"Back to the matter at hand, you foolish child, I'm not giving up the girl," Wolfang said.

"What in the world is going on?" asked a groggy voice from the bed. "William? Robert? Are you two out of bed again?" The young woman looked around the darkened room, trying to make out the two figures in front of her. "Who are you?"

"Just a dream and a nightmare," Melanur said, taking a few steps closer to the bed. "Nothing to worry about- unless the nightmare wins our little argument, but until then, sleep Helen."

The girl struggled to keep her blue eyes open, but they collapsed under the force of his sleeping spell. Melanur took a time to admire her pretty black hair and fair skin.

"For a moment there, I thought we would be forced to truly replay the scene from our fathers' courtship days," Wolfang said. "Of course, you wouldn't want that considering how soundly your father lost last time."

"Lost!" Melanur laughed. "I never realized goblins had such vivid imaginations. The only thing my father lost was interest in your mother. Your father only 'won' because mine withdrew his suit. If a human woman was really put to the choice of marrying a splendid elf King, like me, or a hideous mutt like you, there is no doubt who the victor would be."

"Yes, in a competition between a man like me and a child like you, then there is no doubt who the chosen King would be," Wolfang agreed.

Melanur's eyes brightened. "Let's put the theory to the test."

"Silly elf, I'm not playing games with you."

"I understand, you don't want to lose. It would be such an embarrassment for you. Think no more on it. I'll just take Helen and be off."

He went to approach the sleeping girl, trying to decide the best way to pick her up.

"Wait."

"So you do want to play! Good, good!" Melanur smiled brilliantly.

"Calm down, you prancing little ninny," Wolfang said. "We're setting up rules first."

"You goblins and your rules! Very well, what are they?"

"Neither of us will reveal our appearance to the girl."

Melanur glowered at him. "I should have known that would be a stipulation."

"Are you afraid your ugly personality can only be saved by your pretty face?" Wolfang asked serenely.

"What else?"

"No using magic to sway her choice. No persuasion spells or any of that elvish charm either."

"Naturally."

"And we need a time constraint."

"The second full moon of Winter," Melanur said without hesitation. "Her marriage moon."

Wolfang raised his eyebrows in surprise. "The elves research their human brides now?"

"Enough to know the essentials." The elf King smiled. "Now, the rules are set. Do we play?"

"Marriage is not a game," Wolfang said, preparing to leave. "Maybe losing a bride will teach you to take such things seriously."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Helen Kirke woke up from an odd dream about two creatures, both inhumanly strange in such different ways.

In the darkened room of the dream- or was it a nightmare?- she could barely make out a tall figure with pointy ears like a dog, with hair all over, and golden eyes that shined through the darkness. The other, stranger still in his way, had stood closer to her bed where the moon bathed him in it's light through the window, revealing a terrifyingly beautiful sight. It was a man who was so much more than a man. More graceful, more enchanting and most of all, more overwhelmingly beautiful than any man she had ever seen. Helen didn't know which disturbed her more, the animalistic one or splendidly pretty man with the black eyes that overwhelmed her to the point of dizziness.

Usually, Helen's dreams were straight forward and realistic. Bombs falling from the sky, hunger, loss, and war that tears her family apart, regularly filled her nights. She never had anything nearly as creative as last night's dream. Very strange. But Helen didn't have time to dwell on fanciful dreams. Not when she had brothers to look after, sick patients to nurse, and other family members to worry about.

It had only been three days since Helen and her younger brothers, Robert and William, were sent to live at Hyde Park to stay with their widowed aunt, Vivian Benwick, yet when Helen came down the stairs for breakfast, she couldn't help but ask if any mail from her parents or brother had come. She was predictably disappointed. None had come.

"I doubt they're even thinking about writing letters at a time like this, dear," Aunt Vivian said. "What with the war and all... Some of our neighbors are getting such terrible news. Its enough to make the rest of us not want to even open our mail."

Helen sat down at the dining room table across from her brothers and scooped some eggs onto her plate. As she reached for the bacon, she noticed two birds perched on branches outside of the window. One was plain and brown with a reddish tale. The other was a large, pure black raven.

Helen knew it couldn't be, but it seemed almost as if they both were both attentively watching her from their perches outside.

She shook her head and focused on their conversation.

"I don't believe in avoiding bad news," she said.

"So you think any news we'll get will be bad, then?" 11 year old William asked.

Helen didn't answer. She didn't want to lie and she didn't want to make him cry.

Their father went away to fight a war in a far off country, along with most of the other grown men they knew. It wasn't long before their 16 year old brother, Edmund, ran away to enlist as well. When the war came to London and the bombings started, Helen, William, and Robert were sent out to live with their aunt, where it was too rural an area for the Nazis to bomb.

With family member after family member being torn away from her, Helen couldn't imagine anything resembling good news. She just hated the waiting and uncertainty. Once the next shoe dropped, at least they would be able to respond or do something. And at all costs, she had to be always doing something or she would go absolutely batty.

"There is some news that's not all bad," Vivian said. "Just yesterday, Joan Richardson had a letter about her son, Jack. He was wounded- nothing serious, though, just his arm- and he was sent home to recover. Joan is so glad he'll be back and out of harms way, at least for the time being."

"I wish I could follow Dad and Edmund to war," Robert said. The 14 year old boy looked around the table, pleased at the aghast expressions of his sister and aunt. "Any man would."

"Good thing you're not a man, then," Helen said.

"Am too."

"Are not."

"Am too."

"Children." Vivian gave them both a stern look.

"I'm not arguing with you," Helen said to her brother. "I have better things to do with my time. Besides, I had better get to the hospital. I told them I would come to volunteer as early as I could."

She rose from the table and left the dinning room.

Helen didn't have time for her little brother who was still foolish enough to think there was something honorable about war. How he could think that after the night they spent cowering in the darkness as planes dropped bombs over their heads, she would never understand. Her time was too valuable to waste on such silliness. She had something much more important to dedicate her time to: nursing the sick. Though Helen only started volunteering at the local hospital the day before, she felt like she could spend the rest of her life wrapping wounds and caring for others.

It wasn't because she was selfless and eager to do good. In fact, her reasoning was very self-centered. Helping others with their problems shielded her from her own.

She returned to her bedroom to get a coat. As soon as she walked through the door, she gave a yelp of surprise.

Perched on the tree just outside her window were the two birds she saw outside the dining room. Her mind told her they couldn't be the exact same birds. They couldn't be following her...or spying on her.

She rushed over to the window and shut the curtains as quickly as she could.

"I'm going batty," Helen said.

She immediately felt a sting of embarrassment both for her suspicions about the birds and for speaking aloud when no one was in the room with her.

_They're just birds,_ she told herself. _I've no reason to be frightened by them._

Summoning her bravery, Helen slid the curtain aside and opened the window.

"Away!" She made wild gestures with her hands. "Away both of you!"

They stood their ground, staring back at her, perfectly serene.

Helen grabbed a wash towel from the basin and started swinging it at them. This time they retreated, but only to a branch outside of her reach. They continued staring at her.

Infuriated, she looked around for something hard to throw at them.

Before she could get her hands on anything, a sound she had never heard in the whole course of her life filled the room. It was loud, pure, and beautiful and touched her very soul. She turned around and realized the sound was coming from the little brown bird. His little body appeared to vibrate as the large sound coursed through him.

Helen returned to the window and just stared, awestruck at the exquisite music such a plain bird could make.

The raven began to squawk and snip at the little brown bird, flapping it's wings in fury.

"Stop!" she yelled at the black bird. "Leave him alone!" She threw her brush at him, which sent him flapping away in retreat.

The little brown bird continued his song undisturbed. Helen pulled a chair from her dressing room table over to the window and listened, her heart rising and falling with highs and lows of his song.

She didn't know how much time passed while she sat there listening to him, but it must have been quite a large amount.

"Helen," Vivian said in surprise as she entered her niece's room. "Goodness girl, I thought you had already left for the hospital ages ago. Half the day is already gone."

"Oh, good grief, you're right." Helen stood up and gathered herself together. "I should have left long ago."

As she rushed around, getting ready, Vivian looked out at the bird, who had stopped singing and was looking curiously into the room.

"So this is where that sound was coming from," Vivian said. "You were up here listening to it all this time?"

"Yes, I wasted so much time with it." Helen went over to the window and slammed it shut. "Silly bird."

She was suddenly angry at herself and the bird for squandering so much time on something so useless as a pretty song.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Night was falling. A large black raven soared over the human mansions and into the forest.

The trees flew past with rapid, quick whooshes until he reached a small, flat hill with a double ring of large, old trees. As he passed them, into the meadow within, the raven disappeared and a tall, furry man took its place.

"Elf," Marak Wolfang said.

"Greetings goblin," Aganir Melanur said. He leaned against one of the oaks, keeping to the shadows, away from the dying light of the sun. It was still a little too bright for the elf.

Wolfang could have shared his irritation at the way the elf turned their joint spying expedition into an opportunity to gain the advantage with Helen, but decided against it, knowing the black haired man would just laugh. "Well played, brother," he said instead.

"That was rather nice, wasn't it?" the elf King said. "She was charmed. More importantly, she clearly chose me."

"Until you made her late to volunteering at the hospital," Marak said.

Aganir's musical laugh sent the extensive hair on Marak's arms on end. Silly elf.

"I'm sure the sick and injured humans were still there when she arrived." The elf walked further into the circle. The darkness of night was settling in. "It's your move. What will you do to win her heart?"

"Something more lasting and substantial than a pretty song," the goblin replied.

"You're not going to share your plan, then?"

"Stay out of my way tonight," Marak said. Then he turned and left the circle.

* * *

"I know volunteering is important to you," Aunt Vivian was gently scolding her niece as they drove out of the village on their way home. "But it just isn't safe to stay out so late."

To make up for the time she lost that morning, Helen stayed at the hospital longer than she otherwise would have, forcing Vivian to come pick her up so she wouldn't have to walk through the dark alone and unprotected.

"I've never seen a more quiet and peaceful area," Helen insisted. "I don't think I've heard of one crime at all since I've been here."

"Normal criminals aren't the ones to be worried about," Vivian said. "According to the stories, at least."

"Stories? You mean folktales?"

"A bit more than that, dear." Vivian turned down a particularly secluded lane with nothing but trees on either side as far as the eye could see. "It's just that, at night- well, girls have been known to go missing while they're out late. Sometimes even when they're not out late. I didn't mention anything before because I didn't want to worry you or your brothers after your traumatic experiences in London and you don't seem like the type to be running around at all hours of the night. But, every so often, over the years, girls have gone missing. The police never find many clues and the girls are never seen again. Some of the superstitious folks around here say it's goblins, but-"

"Goblins?" Helen had to laugh. "People still believe in fairytales here?"

"Whether it's goblins or not, girls go missing," Vivian insisted. "And I don't want you staying out this late ag-"

"Watch out!" Helen screamed.

Where there was a clear and empty road up ahead before, a dark figure now appeared in front of them. Vivian swerved to miss him, only to send them off the road and careening into the woods.

They were going to hit a tree and the car would crumple in on them. Aunt Vivian let out a loud screech, but Helen didn't scream. She braced herself for the impact, shutting her eyes tight. But the collision never came. They were just suddenly completely still.

Helen slowly opened her eyes and looked around. The tree she thought would kill them both loomed inches away from the car. The rest of the twilight woods were dark and silent. There was no sound except for their own breathing. Maybe it was the late hour or her aunt's kidnapping warnings, but Helen suddenly felt more afraid than she had moments before when she thought they would crash. She had a wild idea that the unknown darkness around them was more horrifying than certain death. Who knew what hid in these woods? Gypsies, wild animals, monsters...

She couldn't help longing for the close proximity of neighbors, noise, and activity offered by cities.

"The car isn't starting," Vivian said, warily. "We might have to walk back to town."

"But-" Helen stopped herself, not wanting to let on how absolutely terrified she was about leaving the illusion of safety represented by their vehicle. "Maybe we should wait and give it another try in a minute."

"It's not safe out here," Vivian insisted. "Oh- Wait, look up there. It's a light."

Helen looked further ahead of them into the forest. A warm, yellow glow heralded up ahead. Instantly, the young woman was relieved.

"That's probably a house. They might have a telephone."

They followed the light all the way to a comfortable size cottage. Helen knocked on the door with such force, the wooden structure creaked open.

The two women stood in the exposed doorway for a few moments, unsure how to proceed.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" Helen called, pushing the door completely open. "Our car won't start and- oh!"

The young woman gasped at the sight of the room in front of her.

Inside, the cottage was furnished so lavishly, Helen and Vivian couldn't speak. They wandered inside, gaping.

On the outside, the building might look like a modest cottage, but within, the building more closely resembled the home of an opulent king. Paintings in gilded frames decorated the walls. The stuffed couches and chairs were made of velvet and mahogany. Atop the silver side tables were jeweled lamps of gold. In the corner sat a large golden chest, with necklaces dangling out of the barely ajar lid, promising more wealth within. Beneath it all laid a Persian rug.

Overall the effect was...

"Vulgar," Helen whisper. To live so overwhelmingly lavish in war time was simply bad form.

"Not to your taste?" asked a rasping voice behind her.

Helen swirled around, embarrassed to be caught in someone else's home, uninvited. "I apologize! We were just..."

Her voice trailed off as she took in the man attached to the voice He was dressed sharply in the latest fashion, wearing a crisp, firmly pressed drape suit. The clothing matched the glittering room almost as well as it clashed with the piles of bandages wrapped all over his head, neck, and hands. The only part of his physical being she could see were the golden eyes that peered out at her beneath the white clothes. Something about those unusual eyes seemed so familiar, but Helen couldn't place where she had seen them before.

Quickly, Helen tried to stop gaping at the poor man. He was obviously severely injured. He didn't deserve to be leered at by uninvited guests in his own home.

"We're stuck," Helen said, looking directly into the goldish eyes and no where else. "Our car won't start."

"We really are sorry for barging in like this," Vivian said. "If you would allow us to use your telephone, we will be out of your way as soon as possible."

"Of course," the man said. "Elizabeth!"

A moment later, they were joined by a woman with brown hair. "Would you please show Mrs..."

"Benwick. Vivian Benwick," the woman supplied.

"Would you please show Mrs. Benwick where we keep the telephone, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, sir."

Elizabeth led Vivian down the hall, leaving Helen alone with the bandaged man. She tried not to stare at him while at the same time trying not to completely avoid him either. He, on the other hand, assessed her with interest.

"We haven't been formally introduced," she said awkwardly. "I'm Helen Kirke."

She reached out her hand to him.

"I'm Marak." Instead of shaking her hand, Helen's host held it in his with no indication that he planned on letting go."My furnishings aren't to your taste?" he asked again. "I believe vulgar was the word you used."

Face flushing, Helen looked around, trying to find something about the gaudy room to compliment.

"Well, I..."

"You're not a young lady easily impressed by jewels and shows of wealth," he said thoughtfully. "Now I wonder, if the power supplied by wealth doesn't captivate you, what does?"

Shifting uncomfortably, Helen firmly disentangled her hand from his. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"There are different types of power," he said. "The power of wealth, the power of strength, the power of magic... what power do you long for?"

The power to keep loved ones safe, the power to bring her family back together, the power to stop wars. Those were the only powers she needed. But Helen wasn't about to share that with this odd stranger.

"I don't long for power," she said.

Even through his bandages, she could tell he was smiling. Golden eyes bright, he looked at her as if he knew she was lying. As if he knew everything there was to know about her. The feeling chilled her all the way down to her white nurse shoes.

"I wonder what's taking my aunt so long," Helen said.

"Why don't we check on her," the man suggested. "On the way, I'll show you something."

Helen followed him down a dim hallway. He stopped in front of a closed door in the corridor, swung it open, and stepped aside.

"After you," he said, with a fancy gesture of his hand.

The young woman peered inside with a sudden surge of interest. The comfortable simplicity of the room alone was an improvement over the space they just left, but what truly caught her attention were the walls packed with books of all sizes and colors. Helen found herself running her fingers and eyes over the rows of spines, reading the titles. Novels, poetry, philosophy, history... medicine! Greedily, she pulled _War Surgery_ and _Medicine _from the shelf.

One of the things Helen missed most about home was the large public library with everlasting books stocking the shelves. The Hollow Lake village library left a lot to be desired.

"My mother valued the power of knowledge too," the man said.

Awakened from her reverie, Helen blushed and closed the book. "Why do you keep talking about power?"

"Would you believe me if I told you power and beauty are waging war over you as we speak?" he asked.

Helen eyed the strange man with the beginnings of a smile. "No," she replied. "But if I can pay this library another visit, I might pretend to."

"Ah, you're using me for my books." He smiled at her fondly. "I suppose we have an agreement. You will come back, you'll indulge me for the use of my books, and lie about believing everything I tell you. Agreed?"

The young woman let the smile reach the rest of her face, lighting her blue eyes. "Agreed."


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks for the reviews Roxy87, c.a.s.1404, and Spoodles!

**Chapter 4**

With his chief adviser, Tibir, at his side, Aganir Melanur watched from the shadow of the trees as Helen and her aunt left Marak's little house in the woods.

The elf King had to commend Marak for his latest play in the fight for Helen. The mutt certainly managed to push himself into the lead with the appeal toward the young woman's intellectual side. But Melanur didn't see the episode as a complete loss for himself. Like most elves, he was naturally optimistic and refused to think himself at all at a disadvantage. In fact, the goblin King helped give him additional insight into Helen.

"The more I see of this girl, the more I like her," Melanur said, he told Tibir. "She isn't drawn in by the false beauty of gems and metals. She has good taste. And it proves she isn't a good fit for the goblins."

The elf King remembered the descriptions of the goblin kingdom from the King's Wife Chronicle entries written by his grandmother, Sika, who had spent months in the underground realm before marrying his grandfather, Ash. There was nothing naturally beautiful there. It was all carved rocks and lavish jewelry dug up from the ground. Melanur was pleased to find his future wife didn't value those types of trinkets. She would make a good elf King's Wife.

"Tibir," Melanur said.

"Yes, Aganir?" the adviser answered.

"I think I have a plan for our next move."

* * *

Almost everyone in and around the Hollow Lake village received a green invitation that looked as if it might have grown straight off of a tree. Helen could only wonder what the sender of such eccentric leafy envelopes and cards could be like.

The sender, known as Mel Aganir, was a mystery to everyone. No one, not even the realtor who sold him the Huntington estate, had laid eyes upon the man. And many had tried, inventing neighborly excuses to stop by only to receive no reply to knocks. Some braver village boys even crept onto the property at night intent on pranking the mysterious newcomer, only to wake up in the middle of the village square, with their clothing soaking in the fountain.

It seemed the only chance of seeing Mr. Aganir would be at his party and on his terms. The only member of the community who didn't look forward to the ball was Helen.

"I won't be coming by on Friday," she told Marak as she reshelved the book she had been perusing.

The young woman had begun visiting the bandaged man's extensive library regularly over the last few weeks. Even more than the broad collection, she gradually started valuing Marak's conversation. He was still strange, to be sure, but he was so intelligent and refined, she couldn't help being drawn to him despite herself.

"Our new neighbor, Mel Aganir, is holding a masked ball," Helen continued.

The bandaged man looked up from his chair, interest shining in his gold eyes. "Aganir?" He laughed heartily.

Helen studied him quizzically. "Do you know him? Will you be going to the ball?"

"I didn't merit an invitation," Mr. Marak said.

Helen supposed he wouldn't go anyway because of his injuries. Even after all the weeks they spent together, she never gathered up the nerve to ask Marak how he got his wounds.

"You're not excited about this ball," the bandaged man observed. "I thought young women like you lived for parties."

Helen paused before replying, running her fingers over the rows of books. "Well, you see, me and dancing...we don't mix well."

"You don't dance," Marak mused thoughtfully and laughed again. "Aganir will not be happy to hear that."

"Dancing isn't for everyone," Helen said defensively.

"No, it is not," he agreed. "It's not for you and it's not for me. We have less frivolous concerns. I can't wait to hear all about this ball on your next visit."


	5. Chapter 5

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews 8-trackwonderbot and Roxy87!

**Chapter 5**

A masked man in green greeted the guests at the front door of Huntington Lodge. Silently, he led the crowd through the darkened hallways, a crescent moon shaped light in his upturned palm.

As they followed the silvery light, Helen wondered how he kept it shining. No cords could be seen extending from it.

"What do you think so far?"

Helen jumped and searched in the darkness for the owner of the voice. Through the slots of her powder-blue mask, she could barely make out the tall figure of a man walking beside her at the back of the group.

"Not very much," she replied. "I can't see a thing. After all the hubbub about this ball, you'd think there would be at least one light-bulb somewhere in the place. To be honest, I can't wait until this is over."

The servant curved around the corner, taking the faint, but vital light with him. The group had to round the bend in the hallway with him to regain what little sight they could get.

"Because of the darkness?" asked her companion.

"Because I don't like all this extravagance and secrecy," she said. "This Mr. Aganir must fancy himself very important to be entering a neighborhood where he is a stranger, inviting everyone to a lavish mask when we should be conserving resources because of the war, and then hiding himself away, refusing to meet anyone until the ball. It's as though he thinks he's unveiling something grand just by showing up here. I've never met him, but he seems very vain and- Is something funny?"

The man let out a musical laughter that was both alluring and unsettling.

"Yes," he said through chuckles. "He does fancy himself very important."

Helen felt her face grow hot, fearing she might have insulted her host to one of his friends.

"Do you know Mr. Aganir?" she asked.

"I've known him all my life," he replied. "Your opinion of him isn't that far off from a few of the other views about him. I've heard him called vain, silly, childish... Oh, an array of things from his enemies."

"Really?" Helen asked as the group came to a halt. "How would you describe him?"

He let out another melodic laugh.

A faint, but comparatively powerful light washed over them as a pair of doors ahead of them opened. The crowd poured through the door way, murmuring in awe, but Helen stayed rooted to where she was staring at the man in front of her.

Though a plain, green mask covered most of his face, what she did see of him was nothing short of spectacular. Thick, midnight black curls covered his head, overflowing over his forehead and brushing his shoulders. Laughing eyes shined out from holes in the mask. But most astounding of all was the perfect mouth curved into a brilliant smile.

"No, I think I'll let you make your own impression of him," he said.

The man turned away from her and strode into the ballroom after the other guests.

She took a few steps after him, seeing for the first time the forest clearing that served as the ballroom. A thick, green grassy turf covered the floor. Out of the grass rose lines of large oaks that ran along the walls and grazed the ceiling that resembled the night sky. Silver moons and stars glowed, casting a faint sheen over the crowd. A group of dancers garbed in green clothing and masks formed spinning rings at the center of the room.

Standing at the top of the small staircase leading down into the ballroom, Helen's stranger shouted, "Greetings my friends! Thank you for coming. I am your host, Mel Aganir."

* * *

Helen slammed her bedroom door shut and yanked off her mask. Her face still burned from the utter humiliation of the ball. The whole event had been worse than even she had anticipated.

After the mortifying discovery that she had been insulting her host to his face, Helen spent the rest of the evening trying- and failing for the most part- not to let her eyes follow Mr. Aganir as he traveled around the room making one on one introductions with his guests or laughed uproariously at the center of a crowd, or danced with one of the village girls. She especially couldn't keep her eyes from him while he danced. The way he and his partners spun and twirled around the grassy dance floor were filled with such grace and dignity that Helen almost- almost- ached to join in.

But dancing was silly, she reminded herself as she took off her gloves and began working on the buttons of her dress. Just a waste of time. So was worrying about some ball thrown by a man she would probably never see again.

In her long white nightgown, Helen slipped into bed. Torn between her humiliation and her curiosity over this man, she wondered if never seeing him again would be a good or bad thing. But she didn't wonder long. Sleep quickly overtook her.

In her dream, Mr. Aganir was right there with Helen in her room, sitting on the edge of her bed, his face still mostly hidden behind the green mask. Feeling bold and unreserved in her own dream, she sat up and reached for the mask, wanting to know what was hidden. No matter how hard she tried to pull it off of his face, it wouldn't budge.

"You can't take it off," he said, taking her hands in his. "Not yet."

"This is my dream," she said. "I should be able to do what I want."

"But you don't know what I look like," Mr. Aganir pointed out. "If this is your dream, what face will you see behind the mask?"

Helen thought about this for a minute. "That's true."

The two of them continued staring at each other for a few moments.

"Well?" Helen said finally. "Is something going to happen in this dream?"

Aganir gave one of his musical laughs. "This is your dream. Don't you decide what happens?"

"Not usually," she said. "I decide what I do, but other things happen as well."

"Ah, that's how this works. Alright." Still holding her hands, Aganir stood up and pulled her with him. Walking backward toward the window, he said, "What will happen is, I will take you into my forest. Once there we will dance in a meadow more beautiful and real than the fake one in my estate."

"Oh, no, I don't dance," Helen said quickly, pulling her hands away.

Taken aback, her dream version of Aganir gaped in appalled surprise. "You don't dance," he repeated. "Why?"

"I don't know how."

"I can show you," he said, reaching for her hands again.

"This is a dream," Helen reminded him. "You can't teach me something I don't already know."

"Dancing isn't something that needs to be taught anymore than eating or breathing. I can show you that."

"I don't want to," she said firmly.

Aganir studied her for some time. He laughed again and nodded. "If that's what you want, Helen." Taking her face in his hands he pressed a kiss against her forehead and then whispered in her ear, "If you change your mind, dream of me again."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews c.a.s.1404, 8-trackwonderbot and Roxy87!

**Chapter 6**

"Are you ready to accept defeat?" Marak Wolfang fell into step beside Aganir Melanur as he retreated from Helen's home.

"Defeat?" The elf took off his green mask and began tossing it about. "In case you missed it, I just achieved a great victory in our little battle."

"I must have missed it," Marak agreed. "What I did manage to see was Helen refusing to dance with you, even in what she thought was a dream. She doesn't dance, you see. She strikes me as much too serious for that nonsense."

"You goblins..." Aganir shook his head sympathetically. "You're such simple creatures. You can only see what's on the outside. You can never manage to look beyond at the subtly within."

"And this 'subtly' said what, exactly?"

"She wants to dance. Specifically, she wants to dance with me, but she is afraid. Possibly of embarrassment. Possibly of something else. What's important is, Helen will wake up regretting her timidity and will be ready to dance with me tomorrow night."

"Really?" Wolfang asked, skeptically.

"Or the night after," Melanur conceded. "You see, you've attracted Helen with books. I've attracted her with myself. It isn't a mystery which attraction holds the most appeal for a young girl, soon to be a woman."

"Wolfang shook his head, remembering his tutor's lessons on elves and their large supply of optimism.

* * *

Helen awoke that morning, still feeling the tingle from where he dream version of Mr. Aganir's breath brushed against her cheek when he whispered in her ear. That dream felt so real. If it weren't for the absurdity of a stranger she barely knew and thoroughly insulted, appearing in her bedroom, she might question whether it really did happen or not.

"What exactly do we know about Mr. Aganir?" Helen asked at the breakfast table with her family.

"Not much more than we saw last night," Aunt Vivian replied, before stuffing eggs into her mouth. "He's a rich foreigner."

"I heard from Pete Richardson that he's probably a monster," Robert said, matter-of-factly. "There's stories about creatures who live in the forests and only come out at night and who steal girls."

"Are you talking about the goblins?" Helen asked.

"So they're real, are they?" the boy asked, rather excitedly.

"Of course not," she said. "They're just folktales. But what do those stories have to do with Mr. Aganir?"

"He never comes out during the day, he held a masked ball to hide his face, and no one has seen him except for that night," Robert listed off. "He is a goblin. It's the only explanation."

"Rubbish," Helen said.

"Yeah, it's rubbish, until they come and drag you away in the night." The barred his teeth and let out a growl.

The young woman rolled her eyes.

"Robert, that is enough," Vivian said. "I'll have no more of that talk."

The boy focused in on his eggs again. "Why do you want to know about Aganir anyway? Do you fancy him?"

"Don't be absurd," Helen said, though her face burned.

* * *

The more Helen thought about it, the more she couldn't get those folktales out of her mind. Mr. Aganir certainly wasn't a goblin. But there was something strange, almost otherworldly about him: the musical quality of his voice when he spoke o laughed, the grace of his movements, the mystery surrounding him. There was just something not right.

Helen continued puzzling over the masked man while she volunteered at the hospital and even when she went to visit Mr. Marak's library.

"You're not looking at your usual medical books," the bandaged man observed as Helen ran her fingers down the rows of fairytales.

"My brother's been talking about local folktales," Helen explained. "He's got some mad notion that Mel Aganir is a goblin."

Marak let out such a booming laugh that he startled her.

"That was fairly close to my response as well," she said smiling at him. "I can't imagine anyone else less likely to be some ugly, little goblin than Mr. Aganir."

Helen laughed softly herself at the idea, remembering the lush, black curls that crowned his head and those lips that curved into a flawless smile.

A few moments passed before she realized Marak wasn't laughing anymore. She looked up to find his gold eyes studying her from behind the bandages. Helen knew she must be mistaken, but she thought she saw concern brewing in those eyes.

"Do you know anything about those folktales or have a book on them, perhaps?" the girl asked.

"I know a lot about those stories," Marak said, still studying her. "And I have countless books on the subject."

"Really?" Helen turned back to the bookcase. "Which ones are they?"

"They're not here," he said. "They're kept in my ancestrial home. But I can tell you about them, if you like. But we should sit down first; it's a very long story."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews c.a.s.1404, ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief and Roxy87!

**Chapter 7**

A long pause followed Mr. Marak's story of goblins, elves, and marriage.

"And people are still bandying these stories around, like they're real?" Helen laughed. "They actually try to keep their girls inside at night as some sort of guard against being kidnapped by fantasy creatures? What a load of rubbish!"

The bandaged man laughed too. For the first time, Helen realized she had become fond of his raspy, almost barking laugh. She would miss it, and him, once she and her brothers finally went back home to London. But there was no helping that.

She turned the page in the book of fairytales she had been flipping through. There was a drawing of a hooded figure with fangs, riding a horse and holding a screaming, flailing woman. The story had referred to him as both a goblin and an elf at various points. They must not be that different in the eyes of the storytellers, she realized.

"I adore how blunt and honest you are," he said. "You say exactly what you think. That's a good quality in a person, especially a smart young woman."

Helen smiled. No one ever complimented her for that. It was usually quite the opposite.

"That's not one of my better qualities," she said. "Saying what I think, sometimes doesn't work out very well. I managed to insult Mel Aganir at his own party before the party even started."

That barking laugh filled the air again. "I'm sure he could use a dose of truth."

"Yes, well, he probably didn't think so," she said. "Thank you for filling me in on the local lore, but I had better be going. It'll be dark soon. Wouldn't want to be stolen by goblins or elves."

She rose from her seat and placed the book back on the shelf, preparing to leave.

"It wouldn't be so bad," Marak said, following her out of the library and down the hallway. "But I doubt you have to worry about that for tonight, at least."

While he walked her to the front door, Helen wondered, not for the first time, what was under those bandages. She opened the door. As usual, the fading sunlight outside shined startlingly brighter than the dim lights of the house. While he eyes stung with the change momentarily, Mr. Marak backed into the shadows of the hallway, his golden eyes gleaming in the darkness.

Since he liked her bluntness so much, she decided to use it.

"How were your wounds inflicted?" Helen asked.

Those eyes studied her. "Someday I'll tell you about what is beneath these bandages. But be warned, you might not like what you see."

"You would be surprised the things I've seen volunteering at the hospital in London and now here. I don't think any sight I wouldn't be able to handle now."

* * *

Despite her declarations of disbelief, the local folktales stayed on Helen's mind as she joined her family and their guests for a dinner party the next evening. Focusing on something so fantastical acted as a balm against the harsh realities of her life. Why concentrate on ghastly truths and things she couldn't control when there were interesting legends to absorb herself with?

Helen was so interested in the topic, she spent most of the evening's party discussing it with one of the guests, Jack Richardson of Hallow Hill.

The 19 year old Jack was a soldier on leave courtesy of a bullet hole through the right arm. His mother couldn't be more pleased to have him home, in relative safety. His siblings, Pete and Lucy, were also pleased to have their war hero brother back, if only to show him off to their friends. Not every teenager could boast that their sibling took a bullet in the name of mother England.

Jack, on the other hand, appeared ill at ease in civilian company. He had very little to say for himself and at every opportunity, he mentioned his anticipation to return to the battlefield as soon as his arm was out of the sling.

He was seated next to Helen at dinner. Usually, the young woman would have taken the opportunity to question him on his role in the war and ask what it was like to be out there among the gunfire and explosions. Instead, she stuck to her new favorite topic: elves and goblins.

"Since you grew up here, you must know all about them," Helen said.

He nodded and grunted by way of answer. His reddish, blond hair sat, parted and slicked back into curves at the sides of his head as he hunched over his plate, giving full attention to the roast. After refusing help at cutting up his food, Jack struggled to carve all the meat up with only his left hand and what little his right could do.

"And I suppose you're tired of hearing about them," she said, realizing she sounded like a loon for going on and on about something he probably knew every detail of from his early childhood.

But, just as she was about to change the subject to the more timely and important topic of food rationing, Jack expanded on his views beyond a grunt.

"My family's home has been wrapped up in those stories for centuries," he said.

"Wrapped up how?"

"Many of the stolen girls from the tales lived at Hallow Hill," Jack explained. He still hadn't looked up at her from his plate. He was too busy carving up his roast with rigid determination. "Not all, of course. Just more than any other mansion around, probably because none are as old as ours."

Helen felt a jolt at this bit of information. "Why did the storytellers choose your home? Just because it's the oldest?"

"No," he said. "There have been many unexplained disappearances in the area over the centuries. Some like to attribute them to legends. The last one out of our mansion was a young French woman- Colette, I believe. But that was about forty years ago. The last three were women traveling through the area. Before that, an ancestor of mine, Charlotte, vanished one evening while she was walking through the forest. While another family owned the estate, Hugh Roberts killed his two wards, Kate and Emily Winslow, there."

"What does that have to do with goblins and elves?" Helen asked.

"Roberts claimed they were taken by goblins," he explained. "And the goblins supposedly placed a curse on him so he was stuck to the ceiling. He died in an asylum."

Jack went on to describe a few other specific cases, such as one about a girl named Adele, who called out the goblins and was promptly taken. Another was about the fiancé of the master of Hallow Hill who disappeared the night before their wedding. He even described a tale where a girl actually wanted to marry one of those creatures. The girl refused to marry a man her parents betrothed her to because she claimed to be in love with the elf King. She then ran off into a snowstorm that very night and was never seen again.

None of them were ever seen again.

Helen's chest constricted at the thought of it all. Jack told her all of this in a straightforward, emotionless tone that added to the chilling sensation crawling across the young woman's skin. Before, these were just interesting stories with no place in reality. Mr. Marak's stories and her aunt's superstitions of the legends were too alien to be true. But the specific names and circumstances combined with the non-theatrical delivery made them seem more probable.

"What's being done to stop the disappearances?" she asked.

Jack shrugged. "Police never find anything. No bodies, no leads, nothing."

"But-"

Jack finally looked up from his half-finished plate. "You seem very agitated. You don't really believe in supernatural creatures, do you Miss Kirk?"

"Of course not, but something has to be happening if girls are going missing regularly. There has to be a logical, solvable, and preventable explanation."

"Why are you so interested in these stories?" Jack asked, his gray eyes thinning into slits as he took her in. "Are you worried about running into goblins, elves, and unicorns out there on some dark night?"

"She already has," William announced from Helen's left side. "Mr. Aganir."

As Helen shot a glare at her youngest brother, her other one jumped into the conversation too.

"And that man you visit in the forest," Robert said. "That Mr. Marak."

"Don't be absurd," she said.

"He hides what he looks like and never comes into town," the boy countered. "No one's ever heard of him before now either."

"He is severely wounded," Helen hissed furiously, casting a glance down the table at her Aunt Vivian, who was lucky enough to be completely absorbed in a conversation about the war with Mrs. Richardson.

"Or is he? Maybe he's just hiding what he looks like, like _The Invisible Man_," Robert said excitedly. "We have to unmask him!"

Rolling her eyes, Helen decided not respond. Instead, she focused on her food, not realizing Jack Richardson was studying her curiously.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief, ShearViscosity, and Roxy87!

**Chapter 8**

_"...If you change your mind, dream of me again..."_

_The Huntington Lodge ballroom was empty except for one lone couple twirling over the green turf._

_Helen was dreaming. She knew she had to be dreaming because the young woman was dancing. And she certainly wouldn't be dancing unless it was a dream._

_Music flowed around them guiding their movements. The sound was a blend of flutes, violins, and something else, something achingly familiar. The bird who serenaded her with the song so beautiful it made her late for work at the hospital._

_To that blended tune, Helen danced with Mel Aganir's arms curved around her, strong and protective, giving her the feeling she could live right there for eternity._

_The mysterious man spun her away from him and reeled her back in close. They laughed as he brushed the hair out of her face. Just like before, the musical laugh and striking smile drew her in even further. This was perfect._

_But that green mask! It was the only thing marring an otherwise perfectly careless moment._

_Helen reached up to and grabbed the mask, expecting it to be stuck fast to his face like last time. To her surprise, the obstruction moved. Mr. Aganir didn't stop her either. No, he just brought their dance to a halt, his hands still about her waist._

_Slowly, Helen pulled the mask away to reveal what hid beneath._

* * *

A plain brown bird landed lightly on a high branch outside of Helen's bedroom in Hyde Park. Within a second, the bird vanished. In his place, the elf King appeared. With the flip of his hand, the window opened, allowing him to slip in soundlessly.

He walked over to the bed and sat down with such an easy grace, the mattress barely shifted under his weight.

Melanur watched Helen for a moment, admiring her pretty black hair and fair skin. The hint of a smile crept onto her face. Those were very rare for the serious girl. The elf wondered what she could be dreaming about. Maybe it was him. Gently, he pressed the tips of his fingers to her temple. With a large amount of concentration and patience, neither of which he was used to utilizing very often, Melanur cleared his mind and allowed the contents of hers to fill the space.

The full, fuzzy picture didn't come into focus right away, but when Helen's dream became clearer, triumph snapped through him. Not only did she dream of him, she dreamed of the two of them dancing around the forest-like ballroom. There was no doubt now. Helen would choose him. That mutt would have to steal another victim.

The elf King watched them dance and laugh for a moment longer before preparing to break the connection. But, just before he did, the dream pair stopped. Helen was unmasking him. As she did, the victory from the previous moment sputtered out of him like the air from one of those human balloons.

The face under the mask wasn't his splendid one, but that of a monster.

Fangs spontaneously grew out of the sides of his mouth. The skin that hid under the mask looked freshly burned and mutilated, damp and oozing. The once beautiful black eyes turned a menacing red.

Helen let out a shriek that reflected Aganir's feelings perfectly. As the sharer of the dream, he felt all the fear and horror she did in addition to his own.

The girl struggled out of the ring of the creatures arms and bolted for the door. Instead of finding the long hallway she traveled through a few nights ago, Helen found herself outside in the night time woods. Up ahead loomed Marak's cottage. She ran to it as though the place were a beacon of safety. The door opened and Marak, wrapped in his bandage costume appeared. She rushed into his arms, describing the horror she had just seen.

Angry jealousy burned through Aganir. Helen dreaming of this was even worse than the scene actually happening. The girl clearly saw Marak as some sort of safe haven.

Without warning, the scene changed. Marak was gone and so was the cottage. They were now somewhere completely unfamiliar. The furniture told him it must be a human home, but they weren't in the style he had seen at Hyde Park.

The younger of Helen's brothers, Aganir had forgotten his name, was there too, peeking out of the window curtains at whatever was creating those flashing bright lights outside. That's when Aganir became aware of the loud cracks and booms that sounded more ferocious than a thunderstorm. The entire building- the walls, the ceiling, the entire earth beneath them- shook under the massively destructive force raining down on them from outside that window.

"William!" Helen screamed with such savage fear the elf King was almost jolted right out of the dream. "What are you doing? Get away from there!"

She snatched her brother away from the window and yanked the curtains closed. The pair bolted for the door just as a particularly deafening crash landed near the house, shattering the window with its force.

"Mum!" they both shouted in turns as they ran through the hallways, looking through doors along the way. Only rumbles and explosions answered them.

Another thunderous crash hit down, this time directly into the house, sending a blast of debris and glass directly at them.

With twin gasps, Aganir and Helen came rocketing out of the dream and back into the conscious reality of her bedroom. As their eyes locked on each other, just inches apart, they froze.

"I say!" Aganir gasped and moved back, folding his legs beneath himself. "What was all that?"

"My home in London," she said automatically.

"Your home is under attack?"

"Yes, almost the whole world is at war. That's why we're here." Helen sat up and looked around with sleepy disoriented eyes. "We were sent away because it was too dangerous."

Aganir considered this. Almost the whole human world was at war... That's why so many new humans were coming to the area, he realized. They were trying to get away from scenes like the one he just witnessed.

"Those people you treat in the hospital, they were wounded in this war?" he asked.

"Most of them," Helen said. She let out a drowsy yawn. "Let me see what you look like under the mask again."

"Not yet," the elf said. "Later. And just so you know, I don't really look like that."

Aganir stood up and took off his cloak. Whispering in elvish, he hung the green garment in the air and released it so the cloak remained dangling.

Helen watched, not particularly surprised or awed.

"Why don't you take me to these wounded people," he said.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief and ShearViscosity! I really appreciate everyone who reads and takes the time to review :) Also, I wanted to let you guys know ShearViscosity and I started a Hollow Kingdom forum called the Hallow Hill Lodge. We hope to have activities like challenges, ficship competitions, discussions, etc. If you're interested participating and giving imput, please be sure to check out the forum.

**Chapter 9**

Helen opened her eyes expecting to be awake in her bedroom. She was only half right.

This part of the dream felt different. It was darker. The only source of light came in the form of a moonbeam that shined through the window and onto the masked man. Instead of the blurry and disjointedness from just a few seconds ago, everything seemed so crisp and real, particularly the feel of Mr. Aganir's hand on her face, his breath against her skin, and the heady scent of trees and earth that filled her nose.

It didn't begin to take on the dream aspect again until he used the green cloak as a doorway into the Hollow Lake village.

After stepping into a pair of slippers, Helen walked right through the hanging garment and out onto the street outside the hospital where she volunteered as a nurse's aide. The early November snow crunched under her slippers and sparkled in the orange glow of the street lights. Mr. Aganir took the cloak down from where it hung in the air and wrapped it around Helen. Then he pulled a small leather bag out of his tunic. From it, he drew out a long piece of green clothe like a magician performing a magic trick. The cloth turned out to be another cloak, which he wrapped around his shoulders and lifted the hood over his head, covering his already masked face in shadow.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

Helen led the way into the hospital. Like in any dream, no doors were locked for them. The building was quiet. Only a few lights shined here and there so the small night staff could see as they changed bandages and administered medication.

"May I help you?" a nurse asked as they walked into one of the large rooms with rows and rows of beds filled with wounded. This woman seemed to be in charge of the whole lot of sleeping or dozing patients.

Before Helen could speak, her companion stepped forward.

"Our being here isn't a problem," Mr. Aganir said. "You think it's the most natural thing in the world. In fact, this is so mundane, you don't want to waste the energy remembering us at all in the morning. You want to go about your business just like this was any other night."

The nurse smiled and nodded, returning to her tasks.

The sea of broken bodies and bandages had become a familiar sight to Helen. It was the cloaked figure beside her who seemed troubled and agitated, asking question after question as they walked down the rows.

"Miss Kirk." The girl turned to see Freddie Hayter calling to her from his bed a few rows down.

Helen hurried to the side of the man and inspected his bandages. "How is your arm?" she asked. "Your wound hasn't reopened again, has it?"

"Not since you checked it this morning," Mr. Hayter said with a wince. "I've never seen you here this late before."

"Are you complaining?" Mr. Aganir asked.

"No, just curious is all," he said. "I've never seen you here before."

"You still haven't. I'm not really here. Just a dream. But why don't you tell me how you got here."

"After I get some water in me, I'm parched."

Helen was about to move to get the pitcher from across the room, only to find it already in her hands.

Mr. Hayter had been in the hospital just as long as she had been in the area. His family died in a bombing over Finchley. Only he survived. The war had taken his son, his wife, and most of his right arm.

Helen moved on from patient to patient, changing bloody bandages, providing water, and listening to war stories she had heard quite a few times before. Mr. Aganir followed her through the trail of sickness and pain, sometimes helping with injuries and sometimes making the patients laugh with some silly joke that did them just as much good.

The pair soon reached Henry Doyle, a boy the same age as Helen. His youth reminded her painfully of her brother, Edmund, who had run away intending to enlist. She hoped her brother hadn't met with the same fate as her patient, or one worse.

A month after Henry ran away to war, the war sent Henry right back home. At least, most of him. The boy left half his leg behind. But he seemed much more concerned that he contributed so little time to the cause.

"I'm telling you, if I'd had another week, or another full month," Henry said, "it all would have been different. I would have known what I was about and they never would've gotten me. I would've been a hero, let me tell you."

"Or you could've stayed home," Helen said, helping the patient sit up to drink some water. She wished to God Edmund had just stayed home.

"But 'civil defense is the duty of the citizen,'" he quoted one of the war posters with a wry smile.

"What do you have to say about, 'Leave it to us sonny'?"

"'Mother England needs you. Enlist here now!'" The boy's laugh turned into a hacking cough.

Helen was about to admonish him even further, but Mr. Aganir interrupted her.

"You're weak, my friend," the hooded man said, sitting on a low stool beside Helen and placing his hand on the boy's forehead.

In an instant, Henry's eyes closed.

"Why chastise him now?" Aganir asked. "I would say he has paid for his choice enough."

"He needs to face reality," she replied.

"He'll be facing a reality without his leg soon enough. He's too fresh from this war to truly realize his situation. Let him be as happy as he can be until that reality comes crashing down on him. It looks like fantasies of a stolen glory that was almost his are the only things keeping his spirits up."

"Fantasies don't do anyone any good." Helen felt another round of drowsiness fall over her. Strange, since this was a dream. "If we all frittered our lives away on fantasies, nothing would get done."

He nodded, lowering the green hood and studying her. "You're very hardened for someone so young."

Those dark eyes looked serious for once, for which Helen was grateful.

"I haven't heard from Mum since we all got here and that was more than a month ago. I'm trying not to say anything to the boys, but I'm scared. What if the reason we're not hearing anything is because she's dead? Dad and Edmund too? And here I am, trapped in the country with not one thing I can do about any of it."

Helen found that her head was now learning against his shoulder and Aganir's arm was wrapped around the girl. Her eyes struggled not to close.

"What could beauty offer this poor girl?" he whispered almost to himself. "Nothing but a distraction, just some fun."

Aganir clasped one of Helen's hands in his.

"There is something beauty can do for you," he said.

"Beauty," the girl repeated remembering Mr. Marak's words to her the first night they met about power and beauty fighting over her. Helen's tired brain tried to turn it all over to figure it out but all she could think was her dream must be picking up the cue from there.

"Good health and happiness make life beautiful," he said. "I will give you the power to bestow those gifts on others."

The hand he held began to tingle and Helen looked up at him questioningly. But before she could speak, her eyelids lost the struggle and fell shut.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** As always, thanks for the reviews ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief, ShearViscosity, and Roxy87! I really appreciate them :) Also, I want to remind everyone about The Hallow Hill Lodge forum. The August challenge is up (though submissions should be posted after Aug. 1) and plot help/suggestion threads will be open too, as well as book discussion threads. We really hope everyone participates and has fun :)

**Chapter 10**

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes," Marak said, as he fell into step with Aganir on his way through the forest.

Earlier that night, the goblin King heard from the guards that his rival took Helen to the village hospital. So, naturally, he had to take a peek into the water mirror to see for himself. Sure enough, Marak and his chief adviser, Dibah, watched that pretty elf make the rounds in one of the hospital rooms, sometimes using magic to ease pain or even heal a wound. They couldn't see Aganir's face, but they were sure he had to be revolted by the sight of all the imperfect, broken, and ghastly figures. To his credit, he didn't flee or cry out in disgust or even turn them into animals like Marak assumed he would. But no, he actually seemed interested in the plight of these humans.

Once Aganir took Helen back to Hyde Park, Marak decided to intercept him on his way home.

"Following me again, Wolfang?" the elf King said, though the usual humor was absent from his voice. "I swear, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were more interested in me than you are in Helen."

"Since when are the elves interested in human concerns?" Marak asked.

Aganir didn't say anything at first. After a moment, he finally replied.

"There's a lot of suffering and unhappiness out there. They're using their unnatural human magic to destroy each other. I saw it in Helen's dream."

"There's always suffering in the human world and the humans are usually the ones who inflict it on each other," the goblin replied with a shrug of his fury shoulders. "They're humans. When you get too many of them together, you can't expect anything less. They seem to be fine in single digits though. My mother isn't nearly as irrational as the others seem. Just looking at her, you wouldn't guess she came from creatures so senseless, they would try to destroy whole cities of each other with bombs and their other new technologies. This war is particularly ghastly. From what I hear, the civilian casualties are outnumbering the warrior deaths."

The elf King stopped so suddenly, Marak didn't realize he no longer strode by his side until he happened to glance over and saw only trees.

He turned around and found Aganir studying him, a look of betrayal on his ridiculously pretty face.

"Something wrong?"

"Are you telling me you knew about this?" the elf demanded. "You knew Helen's family is in danger and her home is under attack?"

"I'm a little surprised you didn't know," Marak said. "Though I suppose I shouldn't be all that surprised. Elves never pay much attention to anything going on outside of their forest. Why are you starting to now?"

Aganir began walking again, more briskly than before. "What concerns my bride concerns me."

"_Your_ bride? I believe we have a little more than a month before our contest is decided. Between the two of us, I've spent the most time with her."

They reached the border of the elf King's forest and stopped. Aganir stared up at the stars for a moment.

"I've left the stronger impression," he murmured absently. "I have the stronger insight into who she is." He looked down from the sky and directly at the goblin. "Wolfang, do you feel guilty about putting that poor child at the center of our contest?"

"The contest was your idea."

"And you agreed to it. But do you feel guilty?"

"Helen's initial unhappiness and the loss of her world are the price paid for the well-being of my people," Marak said, paraphrasing from one of the lesson's his tutor taught him.

"But she'll miss her brothers and she's already worried about her parents and..." Aganir continued on, sadly listing the things she would miss.

Marak was much more serene about it though. If these foreign women weren't taken, it would mean the end of the goblins. So if he didn't put Helen through this, then it would just be someone else. So why feel guilty about something that would happen and had to happen to someone eventually? Sentimentality was just a waste of time. He cared about her already and would treat her well. That was all he could do. As for the contest, well he couldn't lose out on an intelligent and modern minded bride like Helen who would contribute her superiority of mind to the Heir.

But he didn't say any of that to his brother king, because clearly the elf was the one feeling the guilt, not the goblin.

Marak parted with Aganir and shortly afterward, he was rejoined by his two lieutenants who had kept their distance during the conversation between the Kings.

"What do you think, adviser?" he asked.

Dibah considers this on their way back home. "Elves are very sensitive and sympathetic by nature," he said, scratching the scaly skin above his green snake eyes. "He could give her up out of compassion. Some of the elf Kings in the past have courted their brides before taking them so they wouldn't have to go through the trauma of the kidnapping. I think I remember one or two giving up their intended bride because they loved the human world too much."

"Send me those chronicles," Marak said.

He felt a lot more optimistic. The goblin King already knew he was in the lead, but the sooner he won, the sooner he could take his bride home and help her settle in.

* * *

Hours later, Helen readied herself for the morning, feeling strangly groggy after the odd dreams she had the night before.

"You talked with Jack Richardson a lot last night."

Through the dressing table mirror, Helen watched Aunt Vivian peek her head into the room.

"Yes," Helen agreed, continuing to brush her black hair. Suspicion crept into her mind at her aunt's remark. "Is that why you sat him next to me? You wanted us to talk."

The older woman pushed the rest of the way into the bedroom and shut the door behind her.

"Yes," Vivian said. She took the brush from her niece's hand and picked up where she left off.

"Were you hoping I'd fancy him?" Helen asked.

"I was hoping you would talk to someone around your own age who isn't one of your brothers or a patient in the hospital. You are in desperate need of a friend... Did you fancy him?"

Helen turned over their interaction in her mind and the way he showed more concerned with carving up the food on his plate than he did about the well-being of the missing women. "No."

A silence followed that was only interrupted by the rhythmic brush strokes.

"I'm worried about you and your brothers," Vivian said, at last. "This war's doing terrible things to you even though you were sent out here to get away from it. The boys are overly suspicious and fancying themselves adventurers. Meanwhile, you refuse to let yourself be a 17 year old girl."

Helen turned around to face her aunt. "What do you mean?"

"You're so worried about all of these adult things," she said.

"I think they warrant worrying about."

"But you never concern yourself with normal teenage girl things, like clothes, or dances or boys. Those are important too. When I heard about Jack returning to the district, I thought for sure you would be just as wild about him as those other gossiping girls."

Helen's gaze turned even more skeptical.

"Well, maybe not 'wild.'" Vivian laughed. "But at least interested."

The girl rose from her dressing table and began looking for a pair of shoes. "Are you saying there's something the matter with me?"

"No," her aunt said quickly.

Kneeling on the floor, Helen sent an arm searching under the bed. She knew her white nurse's aide shoes had been somewhere around there. She gasped suddenly. Her hand had fallen on something moist.

"I just think you should try getting out more with people your own age, don't you think?" Vivian said.

Helen pulled her discovery out and examined it. One of her slippers. The blue material sagged soggily in her hand. The firm bottom was stained with oil, as if she had been walking on the street in it.

Her mind went instantly back to her dream of standing outside the hospital in the fresh snow.

The heart in the young woman's chest pounded in her earls like a tribal drum in one of those jungle films.

"Helen?" her aunt called.

"Yes," the girl said steadily. "I think I will try to spend time with people my own age."


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief, ShearViscosity, and Roxy87! And just another reminder. The August fanfiction challenge at The Hallow Lodge is now open. Feel free to enter and participate in any plot or discussion threads :)

**Chapter 11**

Helen did not believe in the supernatural.

No magic. No spells. No nonsense.

That's why she couldn't allow herself to believe the impossible suspicion embedding itself in her mind that her dreams weren't really dreams at all. She obsessed on the possible explanation behind the state of her slippers all day and then couldn't sleep that night. Her conclusions were: a.) She had been sleep walking outside and down the drive, b.) Her brothers used them in some strange scheme or prank, or c.) She wasn't dreaming and really did go to the hospital that night with a strange man wearing a mask who performed magic.

But she wouldn't think about any of that. After an exhausting night of jumping at every creak in the floorboards or gust of wind passing the window, she was ready to thrust the ideas from her mind and get back to reality.

As she strolled down the sidewalk in the village the next morning, Helen noticed Alberta Elliot up ahead in her crisp nurse's aide uniform chatting animatedly with a man whose back faced her.

Mel Aganir had danced with Alberta five times at the ball. Helen wondered if she had spoken to him since. But then she remembered that she wasn't supposed to be allowing herself to think about him.

As she approached, bits of Alberta's conversation became clearer.

"...told me it was the most incredible film she ever saw," Alberta was saying. "It's finally playing at the movie house out here. The houses in London haven't even got it yet because they're all closed cause of the bombings."

The man she was with turned, his eyes glancing at something across the street.

Helen stopped short. The man was Jack Richardson, his hair shined a coppery red in the sunlight. The young woman had spent part of the afternoon with his younger sister, Lucy, in an attempt to spend more time with people her own age, but had found her just as daft as her own younger brothers.

"Really?" he said, replying to Alberta without even the smallest crumb of enthusiasm. "That's swell."

"Well, do you- I mean, are you going to see it?" she asked.

"Dunno," he said. "Maybe you should ask that Mel Aganir fellow. After the way the two of you got on a few days ago, I think you'd be engaged by now. Or haven't you seen him since the ball? No one else has."

Alberta smiled, even hard than before, but this time, her eyes didn't shine as bright. "Don't tell me you're still upset about that. It was nothing. You weren't in any shape to dance with your sling and all. I don't care one bit about that man. I barely know him. Now stop talking rubbish and take me to the pictures."

"So the bloke has gone completely reclusive again," Jack mused. "Interesting. Have a nice day."

He turned away from Alberta completely and Helen found herself face to face with him just as she was about to pass by the pair.

"Miss Kirk!" he cried out in surprise before smiling. "Hallo! I didn't expect to run into you today."

"Mr. Richardson, Alberta," she said with a nod at each. "I was just on my way to the hospital, if you'll excuse me."

"Wait a bit." He placed his free hand on her arm as she began to walk past. "I'd like to talk to you about the other night."

Alberta's brown eyes narrowed. She was already clearly upset by Jack dismissing her and this just set her off even more. "So you go off to war, fight a few battles, and I'm suddenly not good enough for you, is that it?"

"He's talking about a family dinner party," Helen tried to explain, but she was already charging down the street in a huff.

"Oh, Berty, don't be so dramatic," Jack said drying to the back of her blond head as she charged off down the street. "Really, it's as though dolls these days _want_ to repel men." He glanced over at Helen who glared him. "Present company excluded, and all that."

"Of course," she said in a chilled tone as she started walking away herself. "Like I said, I'm on my way-"

"To the hospital, yes, I remember. Let me walk you there."

"No, thank you. I know the way."

But he was already walking beside her. "You take your Florence Nightingale role very seriously, don't you? Is that why you visit that Marak fellow so often? You like to seek out the wounded?"

"If that was the case, I would be seeking you out instead of just enduring your company," she replied.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Aren't you a saucy one."

"Who told you I visit him?"

"Your brothers."

They walked in silence for a few moments before the hospital came into view. Helen stopped before they got much further.

"Is there anything else, Mr. Richardson?" she asked.

"Yeah, will you be seeing- ah!"

A group of children chasing a large white cat ran by, ramming Jack and his injured arm hard against the corner of a shop. He stumbled back, clutching his slinged arm.

"Bloody brats," he cursed.

Instinct kicked in and Helen rushed to check his arm.

"Don't, I'm fine."

"You might have reopened that bullet hole Lucy and Pete are always bragging about," she said.

"I'd rather have a doctor or nurse look it over," he said.

"Good luck with that," Helen said. "Maybe in a few days, someone will be able to fit you in right after they're done with all the amputees and other patients who are in more serious conditions than you. They'll probably hand you over to an aide anyway. Maybe Alberta."

Jack looked around as if assessing his options before finally agreeing.

It only took a moment to see the crimson stain already seeping through the bandage.

"Let's go into the hospital," she said. "There'll be supplies there."

As they made their way into the building, Helen hardly noticed the same children rushing past them again, this time faster than before and without any quarry to follow.

* * *

Nurses scribbled on clipboards, giving orders to their aides. Doctors roamed from room to room, giving attention to only the most severe cases. More patients flocked in, though the building couldn't support many more beds to accommodate the influx.

In short, it was a typical day at the hospital.

Seeing the place in the full bustle of the day felt so strange after the haunting quiet of the dream that took place there.

Forcing down those thoughts, she assisted her patient.

"These bandages are fresh," she noted, peeling them off.

"Constable Wentworth's wife changed them for me this morning," he said. "It opened while I was over at his house."

"What diagnosis did your doctor originally give?" she asked, examining the arm.

"It hit the brackle artery-"

"Brachial artery," she corrected.

"Yeah, thanks a ton." He rolled his eyes. "If I regain the use of the arm and hand, it won't completely recover."

The bitterness in his voice planted a seed of compassion for him. Nineteen and already losing so much quality of life. Waiting, not to get back to normal, but to find out exactly how much ability was lost.

Unfortunately, Jack managed to kill that compassion with his next words.

"Hopefully, I'll get well enough to hold a gun again," he said.

"Why do all you boys want to be killing each other?" she asked.

"If we 'boys' weren't trying to kill each other, you wouldn't have anyone to nurse," he pointed out. "By the way, are you visiting your Mr. Marak today?"

She gently smeared salve on the wound, contemplating the possible reason behind his question. In her mind, she imagined the artery coursing down his arm to where the bullet punctured his flesh. The pictures in Mr. Marak's books helped create the image. Damage to the brachial artery would harm the median nerve too, which in turn limited his mobility. As she pictured these mending in her mind's eye, the cream warmed and tingled under her fingers. With a jolt she pulled away.

"No," Helen said absently, staring at her fingers in confusion. "No, not today."

Jack too examined his arm. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. His brown eyes studied her now.

Helen pushed away any concerns she had and finished reapplying the bandage and slinging the arm, quickly sending him on his way.

With him gone, Helen studied her hands again. They felt cool, not even the slightest sign of heat or tingling from them.

"Just my imagination," she whispered.

"What?" an older nurse, Mrs. Sharp, asked beside her. "Oh, never mind. I need you."

Nurse Sharp set her to work at various tasks, filling the morning with comfortable monotony. Counting out pill dosages and fetching supplies for nurses left her less time to ponder over the strangeness seeping into her life from every angle. It wasn't until she reached Henry Doyle that her mind allowed anything not work related to enter her thoughts.

Seeing him there sitting up in his bed, sent Helen straight back to that dream. Her breath caught in her throat as he glanced up and smiled at her.

"Hallo!" he greeted her cheerfully.

Helen tried to match his upbeat attitude, but failed. Her heart sank even lower when she unwrapped the bandages around the stub of his arm.

"I dreamed about you the other night," he said.

Her heart started beating faster, thumping all the way up to her ears.

"Really?" she quickly went about her tasks making sure the wound was clean and applying salve.

"Yeah, it was at night and we were in here," he said. "And you had a-"

He stopped, glancing down at what was left of his arm.

"What?" Helen asked anxiously. "Was there someone with me?"

"Is this new stuff? It feels warm and strange, like it was sinking through me."

Helen looked down at where her hand was applying the salve. In her anxiety over the dream, she hadn't realized the hot, tingling feeling had returned to her hand. She backed away from him quickly.

"Something wrong?" Henry asked, alert and alarmed for the first time since she met him.

Maybe it's the salve, she reasoned to herself.

"Does it hurt?" Helen dampened a cloth and began dabbing the salve off of him. As she did so, she uncovered skin. Just skin. Smooth, unblemished, unscabbed, unwounded, unscarred skin.

Helen closed her eyes and then opened them again. The sight remained the same. The wound she just got through cleaning was now gone, replaced by perfect skin.

The heart in her chest pounded like thunder in her ears.

The memory of Mr. Aganir rushed over her.

"What could beauty offer this poor girl?" he had whispered. "Nothing but a distraction, just some fun." He had squeezed her hand in both of his. "There is something beauty can do for you."

"Beauty," she murmured.

"Good health and happiness make life beautiful," he said. "I will give you the power to bestow those gifts on others."

She had been groggy, almost ready to fall over into sleep... because she hadn't been dreaming. Not yet. She had been seconds away from falling into sleep when the hand he held began to tingle like sand was coursing through it.

He wasn't a dream. He was real. He was really visiting her at night. And he could perform magic. But not just that. He gave _her_ magic.

She could heal with her hand.

Henry was still talking to her. His lips moved to form words, but Helen couldn't hear any of it. Just the pounding in her ears and her own shaky breathing.

She had to get out of there, she needed answers, she had to find Aganir and make him tell her what was going on.

Before she registered what was happening, her feet were carrying her out of the room, through the front doors of the hospital, and out into the damp streets with the freshly falling snow.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief, ShearViscosity, and BalletGirl98! Also, the September challenge is up in the Hallow Hill Lodge forum.

**Chapter 12**

Gasping for breath, Helen stopped running just outside the village and leaned against a tree by the side of the road.

The cold, fresh air and the exhilarating run allowed the revelation to truly sink through her. Something strange, something beyond rational comprehension was going on. But no matter what, she had to remain calm.

To clear her thoughts, she watched a squirrel jump from branch to branch, finally landing on the one nearest her tree.

Taking a deep breath, the young woman closed her eyes and sifted through the information she had been given, attempting to organize it all into something digestible.

Firstly, magic was real. She saw it with her own eyes even when she didn't know that's what she was seeing. There was no longer any denying that.

Secondly, Mel Aganir could perform and transfer magic.

Thirdly, he was most likely one of those mythical monsters who kidnap girls in the night and he might be toying with Helen before stealing her too.

Knowing all that, could she really bang down Aganir's door like some sort of nutter and demand anything? He would kidnap her on the spot.

Helen pictured the creature behind the mask, the grotesque monster with red eyes and sharp fangs... Or was that part a dream?

She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. Everything was getting jumbled again in her mind. It was like trying to put a puzzle together with pieces from different sets.

There was one thing she knew for certain; she couldn't go to Huntington Lodge to confront him. That would just be handing herself over, if his intention was to take her.

But she had to figure out what was going on.

That's when her weary mind turned to Mr. Marak and all the books and knowledge on the topic of goblins and elves he had. A sensible man like him wouldn't believe in those stories any more than she did at first. But she would make him believe it or at least get him to tell her more about them, like how to fight them off.

Feet almost slipping in the freshly falling snow, Helen made tracks in the direction of Mr. Marak's cottage.

As she turned off the main road onto the beaten path she took to visit the strange, bandaged man, Jack's words from the other night echoed through her mind.

"_Police never find anything. No bodies, no leads, nothing."_

Coldness soaked through her that was only partly to do with the snow.

The cottage slowly came into view through the trees. She picked up her pace, rushing through the foliage. As Helen got closer, she heard voices up ahead. Very familiar voices.

She rushed forward even further to find her brothers and their friends crouching behind bushes just outside of Marak's home.

Robert and William were so consumed with passing whispers between Lucy and Pete Richardson that they failed to notice their sister's approach.

"What are you all doing out here?" Helen demanded, making them jump.

"Blimey, Helen!" Robert cried. "What are _you_ doing out here"

"I thought you weren't coming to visit him today," Lucy said.

Helen turned her blue eyes on the girl. "Who told you that?"

"Doesn't matter." Pete shrugged and went back to peering through the bushes at the cottage. "Would you get down so they can't get a peek at you from the house?"

The young woman remained standing."Why are you spying on Mr. Marak?"

"Cause he's a goblin, of course," William said, rather excitedly. "Were going to capture him."

"Shhhh!" his three companions hissed.

The boys began admonishing him, but Lucy's attention was caught by something in the trees.

Helen's blood chilled in her veins and her heart stilled in her chest. Those stupid, stupid boys! The story of Adele Roberts filled her mind. She had been out to catch herself a goblin and the goblins caught her instead.

"You need to go home." She looked over the small group.. "The lot of you!"

"Do you think that bird and that squirrel are watching us?" Lucy asked.

"What if they are?" Robert rolled his eyes before turning back to his sister. "We got it sorted. You go home."

"Mr. Marak isn't a goblin," Helen said. "But if he was, you all need to stay away. They're dangerous."

"So you believe in them now?" he asked skeptically.

Sucking in a breath, Helen tucked a piece of hair behind her year and glanced around anxiously. Coming to the realization that those elves and goblins were most likely real was one thing, but saying the words out loud? That didn't seem possible yet.

"You should all go home," she said simply. "Stay out of the forests and don't go outside at night."

"I think they really are watching us." Lucy stood up and brushed off her pants. "Look."

Everyone glanced up to the branch she pointed at. They all jolted in unison. A squirrel and a robin perched side by side in the tree, looking directly at them.

"They aren't looking at us," Pete said, though he rose quickly to his feet and took a few steps back.

Robert did the same, but then picked up a rock and threw it at them. The animals moved aside to let it pass, completely unruffled. The boys each started picking up rocks and chucking them at the animals.

This day couldn't get any worse, Helen decided. She turned away from her brothers and their stupid friends, preparing to go knock on Marak's door.

"Hey!" Robert shouted. "Did you see that? Something blocked the last few rocks."

Helen stopped and glanced back. Sure enough, the next stone Pete threw stopped just a few foot from the target, falling straight down instead.

After witnessing a few more tries with the same result, Helen realized what was going on with cold certainty. The birds who spied on her when she first came. The one who sang so beautifully, he made her late for her shift... These weren't animals. They were monsters in disguise!

"Stop! All of you stop! That's not a bird or squirrel. They're goblins or elves or whatever those creatures are supposed to be. Just stop!"

She grabbed Robert's arm as he arched it back. He tried to jerk away from her, which only resulted in them both slipping in the snow and falling with slick plops.

"What are you trying to-"

Two powerful, consecutive cracks cut Robert off.

Just as the group looked around for the source of the noise, they saw both the squirrel and the robin fall from their perch. But that wasn't what incited the string of curses from the boys or the piercing scream from Lucy.

As the creatures fell, their shapes changed, growing and twisting and changing color until two human sized figures, who were anything but human, hit the ground bleeding.

One was a woman with brown hair. Mr. Marak's servant, Elizabeth. Helen had seen her frequently since arriving in the area. But she had never seen that long brown tail curling out of the woman's fitted trousers, which perfectly matched her hair. If it weren't for that tail and the blood pouring out of her, she would look like any average human.

There was nothing average about the other. Green and scaly, Helen couldn't decide if he was more snake or more lizard. He wore clothes in the latest fashion, distinguishing him as a man of means... if it weren't for scales and green claws and the bullet wound marring the effect.

Her brothers scooted themselves close to her as they watched the creatures wreath in pain, their blood staining the snow.

All that blood! Helen's instincts told her to clean and close those wounds, but she couldn't force her muscles to move or speak.

"I think we should go home," William whispered, breaking the eternity of silence.

"Yes, you should," came a familiar voice from behind them. It sounded like Jack Richardson.

Helen's eyes remained fixated on the two incredible figures before her. She couldn't bring herself to look back at the three approaching pairs of footsteps.

The green creature raised its hand in her direction, but above her head at whoever was coming. His emerald, lip-less mouth attempted to form a string of sounds only to be turned into a cry of agony by another crack and a bullet through the hand.

Elizabeth had stopped moving all together.

"Jack! Jack, what's going on?" Lucy was sobbing somewhere outside of Helen's vision. "What are these... things?"

"Goblins," his voice replied. "What did I tell you?"

"My God," murmured his companion. "All those stories..."

"All true, constable. Every one of them. And we can use them to our benefit. You'll see."

The snakelike goblin raised his injured hand again and sputtered out incoherent sounds, then seemed surprised when nothing happened.

Suddenly, Helen's view of the creatures was replaced by Jack as he knelled in front of her. A revolver dangled from his hand.

"You aren't well, Miss Kirke," he said. "You look ghastly pale."

"All that blood, I have to help them," she said, finding her voice at last and trying to get up. "I have to make it go away."

She hadn't fully registered what just happened or why, but she knew she had to do something. She _needed_ to be doing something.

"Robert, why don't you take your sister and brother home? Lucy, Pete, you'd better clear off too."

"But what about-" Helen started before Jack cut her off.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of them."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief, ShearViscosity, and Roxy87!

**Chapter 13**

The revolver pressed against Jack Richardson's palm, cool and powerful, an old friend returned to him.

Just hours ago, he knew for a fact there was a very likely possibility that he would never regain enough mobility in that limb to properly exist, let alone shoot a gun. But here he was, holding his revolver along side Constable Wentworth, with two mythical creatures bleeding at his feet. What a miraculous day!

As the constable sent his lieutenant to bring in help to move the goblins, jack thought back about all that had happened.

A bullet to the right arm sent Jack home from war, but he was no war hero. the story he told his siblings and allowed them to pass around was a lie. but a necessary lie. how could he tell anyone he never saw a battle/ how could he tell everyone that the bullet he took originated from the gun of one of his brother's in arms, not an enemy. It was just an accident. A boy no older than him had been too nervous while handling his gun and it went off. That's all. Just a mere accident. That was the grand story that would destroy the rest of his life.

If one of the German's shot him dead, there would have been more honor and glory. But no, just a boring accident.

So, Jack lied. But that turned out to be a curse too.

He had to listen to Lucy and Pete spread his heroic story of falling to German gunfire after taking out a few of them himself first. At dinner parties, he was forced to provide details so often, he was almost tempted to just tell the truth about his comrade's shaky fingers.

He also endured his occasional sweetheart, Alberta, showing off his wound like a trophy and then casting him off when the broken arm became too inconvenient for her. At the masked ball, for instance, she bragged about how brave he was to all of her friends. Then, when Aganir glanced her way, Jack might as well have been invisible.

"It's not like you can dance anyway," Alberta had said. "You wouldn't want to hurt your arm even worse than it already is. And I don't want to just stand here all night. You understand, don't you?"

Then Jack met Helen Kirke. For once, he could finally spend an evening dining out where he didn't have to recount the details of his lie. No, Miss Kirke spoke instead of local fairytales. He knew of those stories more intimately than he knew his own name. Those stories had been bandied around the neighborhood for years with equal amounts of skepticism and superstition. He had never taken them too seriously until Helen voiced her concern.

"You seem very agitated," Jack had said. "You don't really believe in supernatural creatures, do you Miss Kirk?"

Despite her odd interest in folklore, she seemed like the rational sort, not someone who would quake at illogical rumors.

"Of course not," she had said. "But something has to be happening if girls are going missing regularly. There has to be a logical, solvable, and preventable explanation."

"Why are you so interested in these stories?" Jack had asked. "Are you worried about running into goblins, elves, and unicorns out there on some dark night?"

"She already has," Helen's brother, William had said. "Mr. Aganir."

That's when Jack's suspicions began to form.

He didn't think elves and goblins were real. Nor did he believe Mel Aganir was one of them. But, Helen was right. If girls were disappearing regularly over the centuries, mostly of mysterious causes, there must be a solvable and preventable explanation. More importantly, this was something he could focus his energies on. If Jack hated anything, it was the feeling of helplessness he acquired after coming home. Finding a rational explanation behind the disappearances made him feel proactive and maybe even useful.

Truthfully, Jack didn't think he would find anything. What could he discover that centuries of people before him had failed to find? If by some improbable chance he did unveil the secret source of their folktales, it wouldn't be for years. Jack certainly didn't think he would discover the truth in a matter of days with the help of a few younger teenagers.

But, somehow, he did, and he gained so much more than mere knowledge.

The first thing Jack did was look further into those far out ideas of Helen's brothers.

Marak and Aganir. Two foreign sounding men, both concealed in mystery, both showing up around the same time, both of whom were never seen in town, or in the light of day for that matter.

The wounded soldier considered that more than a little suspicious.

Further inquiries around the neighborhood brought no new information othere than Helen Kirke's frequent visits to Marak's cottage.

Even Alberta hadn't seen or heard from Mel Aganir, despite the attention she received from him at the masked ball.

While he was at Constable Wentworth's home that morning trying to convince the lawman that Marak and Aganir required investigation, his wound opened. Mrs. Wentworth had been kind enough to redress his arm, but the chief constable hadn't thought they had any motive or evidence worth investigating. He didn't take action until Jack brought him evidence neither man would have dreamed possible.

When he almost literally ran into Helen, it had to be fate, he was certain of that now.

Jack was meant to meet her so he would discover the secret to the mysteries and so she would heal his wounded arm.

When that group of children chasing the large, fluffy white cat knocked Jack over, Helen didn't just redress his bandages. She healed the accidental gunshot wound completely.

His arm had tingled with a soaking warmth as she went about her work. It had felt so strange that, sitting in the back of his car, on the way back to Hallow Hill, Jack had to unravel the bandages again for the third and final time that day.

The partially closed bullet hole was gone, replaced by smooth, uninterrupted skin. No scar or scab or anything remained to tell the tale of the accident that almost left him partially paralyzed.

Slowly, Jack had stretched out his fingers to gauge their range of moment and twisted his arm about to test the limitations. There were none.

A lightness, a wonder filled his chest to capacity as he waved his arm to and fro.

For what length of time Jack sat there reveling in the miracle, he didn't know. The driver, Ned, must have been calling to him for a while because he was already out of the vehicle, holding the door open for him. When Jack looked up, the servant's eyes glanced uneasily at his employer's unbandaged arm, but said nothing.

Helen had been wrong. Or possibly misleading him. There was no logical explanation for his arm to suddenly be completely healed when it was bleeding only that morning. The only explanation was a very illogical one. Helen somehow healed him when she rewrapped his bandage. The only way she could have done that was with an ability not yet discovered by science.

In other words, she must have used magic.

His mind ran over some of the legends he heard, narrowing them down to the French woman and the older Winslow girl. The morning before Colette was taken, she talked about two strange men visiting her the night before and making her choose between them. But stranger than that was the foreign symbol she said one of them drew on her forehead with ink that would not wash away no matter how hard the servants scrubbed. She was marked with magic, they had whispered.

The more fantastical story was of Kate Winslow and the way she was said to have destroyed one of the rooms in Hallow Hill on the night before she disappeared. After Roberts put her in a bedroom facing the horrifying forest, the servants said everything in the space from furniture to windows to books were torn to shreds. No one of Miss Winslow's petite size would have been able to manage such destruction. Not on her own.

Going by the theory that magic was somehow involved, what if these creatures gifted both the Winslow girl and the French woman with power before they took them?

For what purpose, he couldn't even begin to speculate. But, since Helen visited Marak so often, he could have given her magic at any time in the last few weeks.

But that all depended on the theory that magic was real and somehow involved.

Jack stretched out his right hand again and twisted the arm without any hindrance or pain. It had to be magic or a miracle, he decided.

"Keep the motor running," he told Ned. "After I pick something up from the house, we're going back to the chief constable's."

As they traveled down the road back to town, they saw Jack's siblings, Pete and Lucy, along with their friends, the younger Kirkes. Sending them to watch Marak's cottage until he and the constable arrived was simple, especially after he told them Helen wouldn't be there since she was busy at the hospital. So was shocking Constable Wentworth and his wife with the sight of his miraculously healed arm. If they hadn't both seen the wound earlier that morning, they never would have believed it had been there at all.

"Now do you believe my concerns about Marak now?" Jack asked.

"No, but I do have some questions about that nurse's aid," Wentworth had said. "Though healing someone isn't against the law. But still, it is very strange."

"Well, she usually visits Marak in that cottage," Jack replied. "Let's go there and figure out what they're doing."

The constable reluctantly agreed, calling one of the patrols to meet them there and bringing a pistol with him.

The pair reached the outskirts of the cottage and observed the children as they threw rocks at a bird and a squirrel. Wentworth was about to intervene when they realized that there appeared to be an invisible shield blocking the rocks from harming the animals. Helen's cries that they were really elves or goblins mirrored Jack's own thoughts. When she and Robert fell to the ground, the squirrel and bird both jumped up as if they were going to alight. That's when Jack and the constable both took their opportunity to shoot. If there was ever a magical shield protecting them, it was dropped then for the bullets punched through each of them. As the creatures fell, they morphed right before Jack's eyes, becoming the very creatures he had learned about as a child, but worse.

One of them, squinting painfully in the bright sunlight attempted to aim his hand at Jack only to receive a bullet through the palm in response.

He was right! For better or worse, he was right!

Now, as the creatures laid at his feet, Jack's mind swirled and tossed with all the possibilities.

"If there's these two, that means there's got to be more," the newly arrived lieutenant said in horror.

"That's why we'd best get them out of here and use the daylight to our advantage," Jack said. "These bloody creatures have stolen and terrorized us for too long. It's time they were of use to us for a change."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief and ShearViscosity.

**Chapter 14**

Helen and her brothers didn't say much on their way home.

The sun still shined. Cars still chugged by as they passed them down the road. Birds, they were now suspicious of, still sang.

Everything seemed quite normal considering the fact that they just saw two goblins gunned down before their very eyes.

"Oh, good, you're all home," Aunt Vivian said as they shakily stepped through the front door. "A letter's just arrived from your mother."

The trio stared numbly at the offered envelope. Their mother's handwriting stared back at them, familiar yet foreign in this wild new world of monsters. If this had come yesterday or even that morning, they might have torn the envelope apart to get to the message inside. But now, none of them were sure they wanted anymore surprises or bad news.

Vivian looked at them confused. "What is this? Not a day goes by when one of you isn't asking after any letters from your parents. I thought the lot of you would be jumping for joy right now."

Helen soberly stepped forward to take the message. William and Robert crowded in close to read the letter with her.

The message was brief. Mother wanted to tell them she was alright and there was no new news on their father or brother. She also cautioned them to keep themselves safe and out of trouble.

"Little late for that one," Helen murmured.

She imagined her mother back home going about life without them. She was probably going about her days as usual pretending she really was alright, even as danger and death surrounded her every night. That "we can take it" sentiment ran strong in Mrs. Kirke and only being completely bombed out of every building in the city would make her leave. She would never bow to the Germans. The only sign of her true concern over the situation had been the fact that she sent her children away again. She could take it. But they would not.

Helen found herself wishing she had stayed there with her mother. Life would have been much more simple dealing with creatures and situations she could wrap her mind around. Receiving magical powers from a masked man and watching to creatures turn from animals into something unrecognizable was much too complicated. Even more complicated than that was how she felt about Mr. Aganir and Mr. Marak. They might very well be monsters. They might have both tricked her into spending time with them. They might even have dubious plans for her. But she couldn't stand the thought of seeing either of them bloody and broken, laying at Jack's feet.

"Bad news?" Vivian asked.

"No news," Robert said, crossing his arms over his chest. "She didn't tell us anything. She might as well have not written at all."

William took the short letter and glanced it over again, absorbing the sight of something their mother wrote.

"At least we know she's alright," Helen said, even though a large, unruly part of her agreed.

"Well," Vivian said, twisting her necklace between her fingers anxiously. "The three of you had best get ready for dinner. You're all so filthy, especially your clothes. What have you been up to?"

After glancing over their dirt coated trousers and skirt, Robert and Helen locked eyes, trying to decide how much to tell her and if she would believe it unless it came from Constable Wenworth's own mouth.

William, on the other hand, rushed right into the story. "We were hunting goblins," the boy said. "Jack told us to watch Mr. Marak's house and then he and the constable shot two animals that turned into goblins."

"Oh, you boys and your games." Vivian shook her head. "Now up the stairs with you. Dinner's in a half hour."

As they climbed the stairs, a knock was heard at the door. It was Jimmy Weaver, one of the entry constables.

"Good afternoon Mrs. Benwick," he said nervously. "I need to take Miss Kirke into town for some questioning."

The girl stopped where she was on the stairs.

"Helen?" Vivian gaped. "What ever for?"

He paused and looked around shakily. "It's about them goblins they found, ma'am."

A long moment of silence followed. "Did you just say goblins?"

"Mr. Richardson says she knows all about 'em. He says they gave her magic."

* * *

Aganir Melanur had spent the night before finding out all he could about the large war raging between Helen's people. The information involved newspapers, maps, and complicated human histories that seemed too foreign to fully grasp. He had trouble understanding why they were all fighting. It wasn't as though they were of different races. They were all human. It seemed as if they would get along, just like elves usually got along with other elves and goblins usually got along with other goblins. But most of all, everything seemed so big. There didn't seem to be an easy solution or spell that could end it all.

The King's advisers suggested he stop worrying over something so unconnected to the elves and focus on winning the competition over Helen. But that was no good either. Now that he knew her and the troubles she lived with, Aganir wasn't sure he could continue competing over her like some kind of trinket. He wondered if he could take her himself or allow her to be taken by Marak at all.

"This is probably why only a few elf King's in history have courted their brides before stealing them," noted Min, the King's military commander.

Min was right, Aganir realized. Normally, he would have just taken her and made up for the trauma that caused her afterword. Now it was too late. Everything was so messy. He was tempted to push it all out of his mind and join the dancing that was starting in the meadow. The only thing that stopped him was the sight of the fluffy white cat form of his chief adviser racing into camp.

Tibir must have been relieved from his shift guarding Helen. Aganir waited as the cat came rushing up to him, turning back into an elf as he approached.

"Elf King, I have news," Tibir said, breathlessly, letting the words burst forth from him at full speed. "During my shift, Helen's goblin guard, Dibah, and the goblin woman watching over Marak's cottage were both attacked by humans. He's found out about our existence and he's shared it with town law man. I was distracted by Helen's brothers. Before I knew it, both goblins were shot. Then Helen was sent away and I thought it best I stay with her."

Aganir stared open mouthed for a moment before responding. "Is Helen safe?"

"One of the constables took her and her aunt into town so she can tell them what she knows about us," he said. "But she should be safe. The guard who relieved me is still with her."

Aganir looked around not sure what to think. This was unprecedented.

"Humans attacking goblins..." Min said, astonished. "And winning."

"Nothing like this has happened since the reign of Marak Sixfinger or back in the old country when they used us for their barbaric attempts at magic," Tibir said. "I can't fathom what they intend to do with them now. I haven't heard of any humans using magic in this day and age."

"Neither have I," the military commander said.

"Send a message round to the other camps," Aganir said, absently, still trying to think of what this jolting news might mean. "Tell them everyone needs to stay within my forest for safety. And send a message to the goblins to tell them about this."

"I already passed a goblin guard on the way here," Tibir said. "I told him to pass the message on to their King."

"Good, I'll summon him to the truce circle so we can discuss this."

And to think, just moments before Aganir thought the human war was too unpleasantly complicated. Now their war might turn into a war for the elves and goblins too.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews Roxy87 and ShearViscosity! Sorry for taking so long to update. School and work have been getting in the way of keeping up with my fics. Now that I have some more time, hopefully I'll be able to push to the end with this one, at least.

**Chapter 15**

"I don't know anything more about goblins or elves or pixies or Martians with tentacles," Helen shouted.

This was the fifth time she had similar response to the repeated questions about the mysterious Marak and Aganir, as well as her own supposed magical powers. Constable Wentworth and Jack Richardson had been questioning her for more than an hour and a half, and she was getting more than a little irritated.

"I know nothing more than what those stories say," she insisted.

At first, Vivian, who accompanied Helen to the questioning in the constable's home, was shocked and outraged at the questions leveed at her niece. How could a rational law man like Wentworth really be seriously asking a suspect about silly fairytales? But then they showed her the two unconscious monsters they placed in the basement. She didn't say much after that. Her arm still hung protectively around Helen, but her gray eyes now held questions of their own.

"The secret is out," Jack said impatiently banging the table between them. "It's official. We know these creatures exist. Now tell us where they live, how many of them there are, what their plans are, and why they gave you healing powers?"

"Stop overwhelming the girl," Constable Wentworth said. "I will throw you out of here if I have to. The only reason I'm allowing you to take part in this is because of the strange nature of the situation and due to your involvement thus far."

"I'm sure it also helps that I'm a trained soldier," Jack said. "Let's face it. We are at war and we have been for centuries. You need me here and we need to be aggressive. If witnesses aren't cooperating-"

"We're not doing anything extreme, if that's what you were going to suggest."

While they argued, Helen's mind went to the creatures in the basement who were shot right in front of her. The police were keeping them asleep with drugs, but their wounds hadn't been treated when she saw them. The few officers with them seemed too afraid to even touch them.

"If you're worried about some war that's been raging between you and these magical creatures," Helen said, interrupting the men, "then was it wise to attack them and hold them captive? Aren't you worried their people will come for them seeking revenge? The sun's down. They can come out of their hiding places now."

"Don't worry about that, Miss Kirk," Jack said. "We'll be ready when they come out of their holes. In this day and age, they're not the only ones with powerful weapons."

"And what exactly does that mean?"

"We've got it sorted," Jack said, pulling out a pocket knife and rolling up his sleeve. "I want you to show us your healing power."

"I say!" the constable cried out, realizing what his partner was about to do. "Put that away!"

"My God, this is getting completely out of hand," Vivian shouted.

""Why don't I use the healing on the goblins downstairs?" Helen suggested. "They need medical attention."

"They don't need anything," Jack said.

"You can't treat hostages this way! They need treatment."

"Who says they're hostages?" he asked.

"Do you mean you're actually thinking of letting them die?"

Jack opened his mouth to reply, but the constable cut him off.

"We haven't decided what we will do with them yet," he said. "You can show us your… skills on them."

Despite this small victory, Helen's mind was still swarmed with worry over what they had planned for the other creatures who must be rousing from their hiding places now.

* * *

Marak Wolfang was furious when he found out about the attack on two of his people. One of them a woman no less! It would have been bad enough if it was just his chief adviser Dibah who they attacked, but no, they shot Elizabeth too. Women were sacred to the goblins, but of course humans would have no similar respect, he thought. But the King's anger also extended to the elves who witnessed the attack and did nothing.

But he didn't dwell on the anger.

Instead, he made preparations to recover his wounded and kidnapped subjects - if they hadn't already awoken and freed themselves- and seek revenge. Marak rallied the King's Scholars to search for a precedence for this, so he would know what he was up against and had his military commander, Jeffrey, assemble members of the Guard to accompany them in pursuit of the kidnappers.

As the group was about to set out from the cliff face of the kingdom, they glanced up at the sky and saw the constellation, the King's Throne, glowing brightly in flashes. It was a summoning to a truce meeting between goblins and elves.

Marak sent the Guard on their way, intending to meet up with them after the meeting. The goblin planned to give that elf a piece of his mind concerning the lack of help his chief adviser, Dibah, and subject, Elizabeth, received from the elves. Then he would delve into a plan to deal with these humans, during this as well as future encounters.

Marak had almost reached the truce circle when the King's Throne stopped flickering. Instead, Nameshda, the warrior constellation began to flash. It was a warning. There was danger.

In the past, this was the elvish sign for a goblin raid on one of the camps. But Marak had never seen it before. He had only just read about the signal in chronicles. There hadn't been any raids during his reign or his father's. There certainly wasn't a raid taking place at the moment. Perhaps this was a message intended to warn both races instead.

As he stopped and mused the situation over, the goblin King's own senses began to pick up on the danger. Instinctively, he shifted into a raven and rose to higher ground. No sooner did he alight than he saw a thick white fog seeping through the trees below him. Rising higher and moving toward the truce circle, the King saw that the double rings of trees were brimming with the substance. Swirling with the white fog were streaks of puss yellow.

This must be the danger the elves were warning of.

Marak swerved around to return home. Perhaps the scholars or the goblins who went on trading journeys would know something about this fog that made his defensive magic warn him of danger.

Marak returned to the kingdom as quickly as his raven wings could carry him. Upon reaching the entrance to the caves, the King was met with an even more alarming sight.

The Guard he set out with were returning, their coughing, wheezing, and holing eyes. Those who could see guided the others.

"What's happened?" Marak demanded of Jeffrey. The military commander's green cat eyes were red and watering.

"A fog," he rasped out succumbing to a fit of coughing.

* * *

Aganir and his people were faring only slightly better.

The elf King and his two lieutenants had been on their way to meet with the goblins when the guard they sent as an extra patrol for Helen ran up to them, heaving and gasping out the story of his encounter with a mysterious smoke that wasn't born of fire. The poor fellow looked horrible with the watering eyes and the ungraceful wheezing.

As the young elf guard spoke, they heard footsteps several yards away followed by the whistling soar of a tossed object which fell not far from them. Before they could investigate the disturbance, the object belched out the very smoking substance the guard had described.

Using sudden and fierce gusts of wind, the elf King thrust the smoke away from him and his people until the container stopped emitting the venom. He floated the container over to himself. It was long and circular.

"It's human," his chief adviser Tibir said, pointing to the English writing on the side.

"And," Aganir said, in the same human tongue, "there is a human not very far from here watching us."

His black eyes rose to the spot in the bushes where the human hunched. The second he did so, the young man fled from his hiding spot and bolted in the opposite direction of the elves, a metal stick with light gushing out in his hand.

While Tibir and the elf military commander, Min, pursued the human, Aganir pinned his cloak up in the air, stepped through the green fabric, and appeared directly in his prey's path. The elf King snatched him up by the arm as he attempted to pass. The lighted stick in his hand fell to the ground. Strapped to the human's face was a black contraption with a protruding snout.

It was exceedingly ugly so Aganir peeled it off of him to look at the human's more normal, yet frightened eyes.

"You shouldn't rove around the border of my forest, friend," Aganir said. "You can't imagine all the dangers you could find yourself in."

"Please don't hurt me," the human begged, his eyes swirling around blindly in the darkness.

"But you were attempting to hurt us, were you not?'

I was just following orders," he stammered. "Please, I never had nothing against you- you... creatures. Honest! It was the higher ups. They wanted to use the gas against you, to subdue you."

"How much of this gas have you humans spread around my forest," Aganir demanded.

"I can't right say- About, maybe- well-"

"How much!" Aganir shook him. "What will it do? Where have you spread it?"

The human began listing off locations. The lake. The truce circle. Areas where humans couldn't enter because they would get lost. The cliff face where legend had it that Dentwood Roberts tracked the last traces of his missing daughter.

Aganir shoved the human into the hands of his chief adviser. He turned to the stars and revoked the call for the truce meeting. Then he considered what message to send in its stead. The elves never had to warn the goblins of anything before.

"Perhaps the raid warning?" Min suggested, in elvish.

Nodding, the elf King sent Nameshda flashing, but didn't make one of the stars stand out as they would have if they were trying to pinpoint which camp was being raided. This danger was apparently everywhere.

"Take the guard and the human back to camp," he instructed his lieutenants. "Make sure the guard is sent to the healers and get what other information you can out of the human. I will check on Helen."


	16. Chapter 16

**AN: **Thanks for the review Roxy87!

**Chapter 16**

As they entered the basement where the monsters were housed, Helen's heart constricted and Vivian squeezed her hand. The girl had forgotten how gruesome and hideous the lizard-like creature was. Elizabeth was only mildly odd in comparison with her brown monkey tail hanging off the side of the table she laid on. Though she wanted to help them both the thought of touching the scaly one sent a wave of revulsion through her stomach.

Bloody, hell," Jack whispered as he approached the tables where the unconscious creatures laid. "I don't think I'll ever be used to looking at these monsters. Have you already got a good shot of this one?"

Helen looked around and saw a few other people in the room, one operating a film camera. The man gave Jack the affirmative. Others included a few officers and a doctor Helen recognized from the hospital, Dr. Elliot.

"You'll want to record this as well," Jack said. "We need proof this magic is real."

"Magic?" the camera man asked. "We aren't waking these things up, are we?"

Jack pointed at Helen. "One of the monsters gave her healing magic."

Jack instructed him to get footage of the lizard's wounds before gesturing for her to come toward the table.

"Wait," Vivian said, holding Helen back. "Is this dangerous?"

"We're keeping it sedated," Wentworth said. He pulled out the pistol at his hip. "And if it wakes and tries anything, we can sedate it again or put it down if we have to."

"That's a good idea," Dr. Elliot said. "To keep these two down, we've had to use doses of sedatives so large they would kill a normal human. For safety, we might want to keep them down permanently."

"Not until we get what we need from them," Jack said.

Another wave of revulsion shook Helen's stomach, but it wasn't the goblin she was disgusted by.

Slowly, she approached the table. The constable removed the pair of handcuffs from the lizard's wrist and left it on the table. Using the supplies they gave her, Helen applied a salve on the creature's hand. Jack's bullet had carved a hole straight through the palm and right out the back. She knew how this would be treated normally, but given her new ability, she decided to try a new tactic. She picked up the scaled claw and applied a hefty amount of medication to each side. Then she pressed his hand between both of hers.

The tingling returned.

Helen tried not to look around her, but she could feel the camera taking in every move she made. She focused her gaze on the unconscious patient. Even looking directly at him and holding his hand, Helen had a difficult time comprehending he was real. But there he was, his eye lids flickering as she set his claw down.

A buzz of voices and gasps rose up around her as they saw the completely healed claw.

As Helen moved on to the bullet hole in his chest, the goblin awoke. His green eyes stared straight into hers and for a moment, she couldn't breathe. Then they abruptly closed, wincing and groaning in the bright light.

She could hear the withdrawing of weapons around her.

"Don't move," she whispered to the goblin. "They'll kill you if you move."

He didn't listen. The goblin flexed his newly healed claw and spewed out a series of incomprehensible syllables.

Guns cocked around them. But nothing happened.

The goblin squinted at his hand, chest having as he stared in anger and confusion.

"What's your name?" Helen asked.

"Dibah," he said.

She frowned at the unfamiliar sound.

"Do you speak any English at all?"

"Yes, I do," he said, with a flawless British accent that marked him a native of that part of the country. "And my name is Dibah, Helen."

"You're still recording this aren't you?" Jack asked the camera man. "I can hardly believe it. It can talk! In English too."

Ignoring him, Helen continued focusing on her patient. "The wound on your chest. Can I heal it?"

He tried to peek an eye open again to look at her, but he clamped it shut again as he nodded.

Helen peeled the shoddily placed dressing off the wound. It looked as though the bullet had already been taken out. She managed to completely heal him without much more than inciting a groan from him.

As her audience exclaimed around her, Helen slipped the pair of handcuffs off the table and into the pocket of her dress.

"Incredible," Wentworth whispered.

"If this is the kind of power these creatures can offer, this could change the world," Dr. Elliot said.

"And just think of the other powers these monsters have to offer," Jack said. "We can dissect them and figure out how to generate this power for ourselves."

A low, hissing laugh stopped the discussion.

"Do you humans really think you can attack a goblin and face no repercussions?" Dibah asked. "As soon as the King finds out about this, you'll be on the receiving end of some goblin revenge that will make you long for the battlefields of your human war."

All of the men exchanged uneasy glances except for Jack.

"Doctor, why don't you sedate him again," he said.

It took several men to hold the creature down so Dr. Elliot could puncture the scaly skin with two doses of sedative. After his struggles subsided, they slowly backed away from him. A few of them insisted on going upstairs to the lavatory so they could wash their hands.

"That is enough," Vivian said. "I'm taking my niece home."

"But what about Elizabeth?" Helen protested, watching Dr. Elliot inject the already unconscious female goblin with a dose of sedative. "She needs help too."

"We shouldn't let Miss Kirk out of our sight," Jack said. "She could be dangerous. She should be in police custody."

"For what?" Vivian demanded. "She hasn't committed any crimes. She's only healed people - including you."

"There's no telling what other 'gifts' those monsters gave her. The incident with Kate Winslow said she could have been very destructive. She might have destroyed an entire room while her guardian was standing right outside of it. Miss Kirk should be put in a cell and watched."

"She certainly should not be! Constable, unless you have a crime to arrest my niece for, we're leaving."

"She's right," Wentworth said. "Miss Kirk hasn't committed any crimes. We can't hold her." He held up a hand to cut off a protesting Jack. "But she did mention one of these creatures visiting her at night and manipulating her into believing he was just a dream. For her own safety, Vivian, would you object to her staying in a guest bedroom upstairs? We could post an officer outside of her door."

Vivian agreed to that, but only for the night. Tomorrow, Helen would return home.

The girl didn't think posting an officer at her door would help keep her or the inhabitants of the house safe if a goblin or elf decided to stop by for a visit - which she hoped they would. She just hoped the plan she was forming would work.

* * *

Jack and Wentworth climbed the stairs out of the basement. The former soldier was very proud of himself. Thanks to his family's home video camera they would now have undeniable proof these creatures existed. Now they could share that knowledge with the whole of England. He would be a hero for discovering and fighting against predators who have been terrorizing them for centuries.

Unfortunately, his partner in this crusade wasn't expressing the same amount of pride.

"This wasn't thought through," Wentworth said.

"We didn't have time to think it through," Jack said. "We had to act. We did the right thing. Our country will thank us for it."

"That Dibah was right," the constable insisted grimly. "If these goblins are as powerful as the legends say, then they can make us pay for this."

"As long as we keep them subdued with the tear gas and the mustard gas, we will be safe," he said. "And if we're able to bring in reinforcements, we can keep them down for good and figure out how to utilize their powers to win this war."

"I'm not even thinking that far ahead. I just hope the boys are keeping they m at bay so this town can survive the night."

That was fine with Jack. The constable could think of the present while Jack thought of the future. A future that required protecting. While the police force gassed the forests, he would take the film footage to London where it would be duplicated and shared with the right people.

* * *

Aganir landed on the branch right beside the elf guard disguised as a white owl. After receiving an update on what the guard had observed, the King decided to approach Helen.

Looking through the walls, he saw everyone in the house. Helen, apparently asleep in bed. The human guard outside her door, leaning back so the legs of his chair balanced on two legs. The human owners of the house arguing in their bedroom down the hall. The group of humans and two unconscious goblins in the partially underground depths of the building.

Aganir sent each one of the humans to sleep, causing some of them to crumple to the ground. Then he turned back into an elf while still balancing on the branch outside of Helen's room and slipped through the window.

He approached the bed and reached out a hand to wake Helen up. But just as he touched her shoulder, the hand hidden beneath her pillow rose up and clanked a metal circle around his wrist. He tried to pull his hand back, only to find himself chained to one of the bars at the end of the bed.

Aganir stared open mouthed at Helen, then at the silver circle around his wrist, and back to Helen. It took him a minute to get over the disgusting feel of the cold metal touching his skin, but when he did, the elf King had the opportunity to fully understand what his would-be-bride was doing. She trapped him.

Then, for the first time in too many days, Aganir laughed. He laughed so deep and long his stomach hurt and his eyes watered. Oh, how good it felt to laugh again. Everything had been so serious for so long.

"I think I must have missed the joke," Helen said, her blue eyes and lovely face as hard as stone. Not the least bit amused.

"_You_... have captured _me_..." he said through laughs."My clever Helen, I believe I belong to you now."


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews ShiningxXxShadowxXxThief and ShearViscosity!

**Chapter 17**

Marak spent a good part of the night healing his ill goblins who had breathed in the mysterious fog.

More than just the Guard he set out with consumed it. A class of pages had been out with their lore master learning both human and elvish constellations. Several healers had also ventured out of the kingdom to gather various plant ingredients for spells and potions. A few other goblin subjects were also out rambling over the nearby hills. They all tricked in, wheezing and coughing. Marak quickly relieved them of the symptoms, but not knowing what other symptoms might appear, he ordered them to stay in bed to be monitored. Everyone else was either forbidden to leave the kingdom or assigned to clear their part of the forest.

Marak himself was determined to rescue Dibah and Elizabeth immediately.

If these humans were so determined to get their hands on goblins then they were in luck because they would so be facing the most goblin of the goblins.

Unfortunately, when he looked through the water mirror to find his stolen people, he found the entire house they were in filled with sleeping humans. Everyone from the mistress and master of the house to the police officers below were collapsed in magic induced sleep. The only exceptions were Helen and Aganir who argued in a second story bedroom.

"Is that elf already back to wooing?" Marak wondered aloud to Jeffrey, who stood behind him holding the reigns of four horses.

"If he is, it's going poorly," the goblin military commander observed.

Putting the irritation aside, Marak moved the image on the water mirror to directly behind the house. The goblin King stepped through the water and out onto the grass in the backyard. Jeffrey followed, pulling the horses behind him. After tying them to a tree, the duo entered the house and made their way to the basement. Police officers littered the stone floor, their guns lying uselessly on the floor beside them. A man in a white coat who appeared to be a doctor was slumped over a chair.

Marak and Jeffrey stepped through the sleeping bodies to get to the captives. The King administered a cleansing potion to Elizabeth which was designed to rid the body's system of unwanted substances. Jeffrey did the same with Dibah. Several minutes past before they began to stir. In that time, they performed Locating Spells on them to search for wounds in need of healing. They found nothing. Just dried blood on shirts where bullets must have punctured through. Odd.

"The elf guard said you had both been shot with human guns," Marak said once Elizabeth was fully awake. "What happened?"

The goblin woman explained how they had been distracted by Helen and the children when the humans had shot them.

"One of the bullets went through my magical hand," Dibah said lifting it up and flexing it uselessly. "The King's Bride healed it and our other wounds, but it still doesn't work."

"The _King's Bride_ healed us?" Elizabeth repeated, confused.

"Human's can't work magic," Marak said, though he could sense the statement was the truth. Then an explanation rose up in his mind. "That night at he took her to the hospital... Silly elf."

Elves and goblins could store magic in humans that they could use, but it didn't' spring from them naturally and would run out. It was a pointless practice in Marak's opinion because the magic would have to be renewed regularly and the user couldn't match the skill of a truly magical being.

_Very like an elf to give such a temporary gift_, Marak thought.

"Have you attempted to perform spells?" he asked Dibah.

"Yes," the goblin said. "Nothing."

The King took his green claw and examined it. "If only I could see the wound and the damage that had been done... Did Helen come down here on her own?"

"She healed it while a group of human's watched," Dibah said. "One of them recorded it with a film camera."

"Film camera?"

"It's one of those human inventions that they use to make films to tell stories with moving pictures," Elizabeth explained. "A few of us have gone to see them during our trading journeys."

"Yes, I know what it is," Marak said. "I didn't realize they were so readily available."

One of the perks of living in such a secluded part of the country was that human technology reached them so slowly. Yet, here they were being attacked by weapons they didn't understand and being recorded with devices humans used for entertainment.

"The Richardsons who live in the Hall at Hallow Hill had a camera," Jeffrey said. "A day guard saw them using it several times by the lake this summer. They had cousins visiting and they recorded each other as they played in the water and had picnics. We've never seen any of the other families use one though."

Marak surveyed the rescued goblins and then the fallen kidnappers at their feet. It was time to have a chat with these humans. But first, he would see how Helen fared.

* * *

Pent up fury sent Helen's chest heaving as she watched her masked captive laugh uproariously. This was absolutely not the time for frivolity. Here she was thinking she would have the upper hand only to have him make fun of her.

"Now that you have me prisoner, what do you plan to do with me?" he asked once his laughter had subsided.

"Don't tease me," Helen said. All the things she planned to say about the way he had been fooling her and all the answers she had planned to demand from him all evaporated. Light from the street outside poured over him and he was smiling so broadly, she was finding it difficult to think.

"Teasing you? No, I am very pleasantly surprised. You tricked me. I knew I liked you, but I didn't know you would be so much fun."

Helen took a deep breath to clear her mind and restrain her irritation.

"What do you want from me?" she asked. "Why do you keep coming to me and why did you give me magic?"

"Isn't the fact that I like you reason enough?"

"No. Now answer my questions or I'll scream and the guard right outside my door will come in. Chances are he'll shoot you."

The masked man just smiled. "Is that what you want? To have those humans shoot their bullets into me like they did to those goblins below us? Like they do to each other in your war?"

Helen stared at him silently trying not to let the alarm she felt play out on her face. She wouldn't want to see him- anybody, she reminded herself- shot. Not again.

"I just want the truth," she said. "I can't stand all this mystery and folklore. I'm going mad with it."

The mirth left Aganir's black eyes as her blue ones stared into his, serious and desperate.

"I don't think I want to tell you," he said. "I don't think you will like it, at least not at first. But..." He took both of her hands in his. "But after some time, once you get used to us... It took my mother more than a year, but she was happy with us. And..."

Helen tore her hands away from his and back off the bed quickly. "Why aren't you still handcuffed?"

How long had he been free? How could she not have noticed?

Aganir glanced down at his wrist in surprise.

"Oh, that." He rubbed the bare skin where she had cuffed him. "That metal is ghastly goblin stuff. I hate the feel of it."

Helen backed up until her shoulder blades hit the wall. She had underestimated her would-be-captive. There was absolutely no way to gain control of this situation.

"It was a nice try though," Aganir said encouragingly. He stood and started crossing the room toward her. "You took me completely by surprise."

"Stay back! Don't come near me!"

She bolted from the room and shook the sleeping guard to wake him. "Officer, you have to help me!"

No matter how much she jostled him, he did not stir.

Helen yelped when she saw Aganir standing in the doorway, still partly illuminated by the street light outside the window.

"What did you do to him?" she asked.

"I put him to sleep," he said like it was the most normal thing in the world. "Do calm down. You're making me nervous."

"_I'm_ making _you_ nervous? You're the one breaking into my bedroom and planning to kidnap me!"

"You don't have to worry about that yet," he assured her.

"Then _when_? When do you suggest I worry?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Why don't we?" came a rasping voice all too familiar to Helen

The girl turned to see a shape moving in the shadows at the end of the hall. The way Mr. Marak was draped in darkness and Mr. Aganir was shinning in pale light reminded Helen of that "dream" she had a couple of months ago when she and her brothers first moved to the area.

"Telling her doesn't break any rules," Marak said.

"But it will upset her," Aganir protested. "She's already upset enough."

"And it's making you nervous," the other man said. "We know. But we might as well tell her. Whenever she finds out she will be upset."

"But, putting it off won't hurt anything."

As they volleyed back and forth as if she wasn't even there, Helen's fear decreased and her annoyance grew. Fed up with them controlling whatever it was that was going on, Helen decided to cast her own light o this situation. Feeling the wall beside her for the nearest light switch, the girl flipped it, filling the hall with cleansing illumination and revealing a sight that flattened her lungs, cutting off any attempt to breathe.

She should have been ready for this. Tending to the monkey tailed Elizabeth and the scaly Dibah should have made any other sight seem all but normal. But nothing could have prepared her for this.

The creature who stood at the top of the steps looked almost nothing like the bandaged man she had talked and laughed with so many times during the last couple months. Instead of off white wrapping, brownish black fur sprouted out of his face, neck, and wrists. She expected the creature's arms to end in wolf paws, but instead hands with long, boney fingers protruded from the mass of hair. Then the head. Helen couldn't imagine how that wolf snout could have been concealed within bandages. It didn't protrude as far out as a real wolf's, but far enough that his profile would never pass for human under natural circumstances.

Only Marak's eyes, those golden eyes, looked familiar. Those and the fashionable clothes he wore. The perfectly tailored trousers and jacket contrasted eerily with his monstrous appearance.

The police officer was lucky. He could sleep peacefully through this sight.

Both men gasped. With a sizzling crack, the light went out.

The hall was even darker than before because Helen's eyes needed to readjust. That was a relief. The inability to see allowed her to gather her composure. Finally able to breathe, she sucked in every bit of sweet oxygen she could.

"You've disqualified yourself, Marak," Aganir said. "It was your own rule. Neither of us was supposed to reveal our appearance to Helen. The game is over, mutt. You lose."

"_We_ aren't supposed to reveal our appearance to _her_," Marak said. "No rule was made about her uncovering our appearance. Nice try, silly elf."

"So all this time, I could have 'accidentally' allowed her to take off my mask?"

"What have the two of you been playing at?" Helen screamed.

"We're telling her the truth," Marak said. "Helen, I am the goblin King. He is the elf King. In order to produce an Heir, we must each marry a woman from outside of our races. I can marry a human or an elf. He can only marry a human. A short time after you arrived, we both chose you. Since we can't both bring you home, we decided to spend time with you and allow you to choose your own husband."

"Husband? Marriage? Heir?" Helen stammered. "No! I don't want to do any of that. Not right now. Certainly not with either of you." She turned to Aganir. "You've been creeping through bedroom windows and playing mind tricks on me. And you." She turned to Marak. "You've pretended to be an invalid! You pretended to be my friend. You couldn't be less of either."

None of them spoke for a long moment. She watched Aganir shift uncomfortably, but couldn't see Marak's reaction.

"We don't have to settle this for another month," the goblin King said. "We should focus on the more immediate problem: The humans and the weapons they are releasing into the forest."

"You're right," Aganir agreed. He seemed relieved to focus on something else. "We should take the lawman as well as his human guards and question them on the extent of the damage they have done."The sun will be up soon. We can use Huntington Lodge."

"But wait," Helen protested. She still had a lot to say.

She wanted to convince them to leave her alone. She wanted to talk about the condition those poor goblins down below were in. She had questions about the magic Aganir had given her. But she couldn't ask any of that. Sleep began to take its power over her.

As Helen fought the force that weighed her eyelids down, she got a quick glimpse of Aganir as he picked her up.

"Don't worry," Marak's voice came. "We'll send you good dreams."


End file.
